Korg Forums

[Sharp]

Hi all.
This is mainly just an information dump so that if someone else has this kind of problem in the future, you might find what I have to say useful.

Basically my KRONOS has been unreliable for many months. There have been times it will boot up just fine, but for no obvious reasons it would display a system error during use, asking me to turn off the kronos and removed all USB devices.

Then there are times, many times, it simply won’t boot up at all. Where it says “Music Workstation” on the screen, the progress bar would hang under the letter s in the word music.

A google search suggested.....
1: Check to see if the RAM was seated correctly.
2: Replace the PSU.

Option 1 was easy to check. Opened up the KRONOS and nada.. made no difference.

Option 2, that’s pretty extreme so I tried something else first which was.....

Full OS reinstall using the “full format” and reinstall option.
I have an original gen 1 KRONOS, so the disks I had were very old, version 1 data. Regardless I ran the disks through the install process and my KRONOS reverted to day 1, like I bought it. But hey, it was booting up fully again. I instantly saw this as proof the OS had been corrupted.

From there I jumped directly to the latest OS, no in-between versions. Straight from v1 to the very latest.

My KRONOS seems to be behaving perfectly since, and it’s been 4 weeks of use every day.

Kind regards
Sharp.
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[Sharp]

PS.... If you are reading this and have never done a backup of all the data on your KRONOS, do it now. I didn’t get caught out because it’s always been a habit of mine to do backups. The key thing is to make it easy, so if you haven’t already done so, buy the USB LAN dongle for the KRONOS and FTP into the KRONOS. Doing backup’s like this is totally effortless.

[KK]

Hi Sharp,

Thanks for this info and glad your Kronos is back strong again !

We are never too careful about backups so I make sure to create a new Save All every time after some important programming.

When you have time, please tell which USB DVD device you used as I read the Kronos can have compatibility issues with several of them.

[Sweat]

This proved to be the final solution to my problem as well. Found a super deal on a KX from a previous owner. He let it go cheap because it would occasionally boot, then soon shut down with an error. Most often would only start to the dreaded SYSTEM STARTUP FAILURE .

Searching the forum, you see many have found this is such an elusive error. I did find this great post that appears to be a service bulletin from Korg to help qualified service techs with this.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1970799969835695/posts/2531990897049930/

Following this guide, I checked the RAM, cable connections, and power supply voltages. I even tried swapping the D525MW motherboard with one I found online. However, all results were the same system startup failure.

On ocassion at boot up, I noticed it would display a different error of " System cannot start due to a file system error
Please reinstall the system software. (19, keybed) "

After a few failed attempts at downloading and burning restore files (ugh!), I finally successfully loaded (a correct version 2.0.2) to the KRONOS X. I believe the issue most people have had with DVD drives is not because of incompatibility. Instead, as mentioned in the bulletin, it needs enough power when connected directly to the Kronos USB port. So, using a Y-cable to both USB-A ports is recommend. I simply used a powered USB hub.

Then as Sharp mentioned, I jumped directly to the latest OS.

It has been a learning experiece, but hope this helps some folks.

[Falcon2e]

I just had a gig tonight and my K crashed. Tried re-booting a couple times but it failed. It was in direct sunlight for about 90 minutes before things went bad, prior to that it was working perfectly. After having it home for about 5 hours I thought I’d try again just in case it was heat related. This time I got the same message as Sweat…. System cannot start due to a file system error please reinstall the system software.

Should I open it and re-seat ribbon cables? It’s been a long time since I updated the OS, I think it’s 3.1.3. As I recall all I needed was a usb thumb drive and follow the instructions after downloading the OS to the drive.

Help please, I’m not sure where to start. Thanks
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Kronos2-61..(2) Triton Classic, Nord Stage 2, Previously owned lots of other gear dating back to the 70’s.

[SeedyLee]

There's a bunch of things that can cause the issue you're experiencing. Reseating the RAM and ribbon cables/internal USB connectors won't hurt, but it may very well be something else. There's heaps of advice on the forums here about what to check and some troubleshooting guides.

Sorry to hear you're having problems.
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Current Equipment:
Korg Kronos 2 88, Reface CS, Roland JV-1080, TE OP1, Moog Subsequent 37, Korg ARP Odyssey, Allen & Heath Zed 18, Adam F5, MOTU MIDI Express XT, Lexicon MX200 & MPX1, Yamaha QY700, Yamaha AW16G, Tascam DP008ex, Zoom H6, Organelle, Roland J6 & JU06A

Previous: Triton LE 61/Sampling/64MB/4GB SCSI, MS2000BR, Kronos 1 61, Monotribe, NanoKontrol, NanoKeys, Kaossilator II, Casio HT3000, Roland VP-03, Reface DX, Novation Mininova, MPC One

[Falcon2e]

[ronnfigg]

Is your Kronos still OK? A year later...