Advice - Question - Your Experience

[dlichtdotcom]

Hi,

I just received my 3rd J3 and believe I know what caused the 2nd one to "brick". I use a MAC with Parallels running Windows 7 and Windows XP64. To avoid future problems I am willing to move my entire music collection to the PC drive.

The purpose of doing this is to also identify and remove all .trashes, .spotlight and all the other hidden files created on the MAC that seems to drive the J3 crazy. So my question is:

1. Is Media Monkey the best option versus iTunes?
2. If not what is?
3. Will the J3 exclusively interfacing with a PC avoid the problems associated with using this device with a MAC?

Your help and time will be much appreciated and I can't thank you enough in advance. I've looked up and searched what I could but I'd like to hear about other users environments and their J3 experience to avoid "bricking" the device.

Cheers,
Steve

[Kizune]

There is a trick by a German Amazon customer which makes it possible to use the J3 (and S9) on a Mac without a risk.

"Ich hatte selber das gleiche Problem, dass mein Cowon-Player den Dienst verweigerte nach einem Anschluss am Macintosh.
Nach langer Suche kam ich auf die Lösung des Problems: Sie lautet "BlueHarvest". Das ist ein kleines Tool, das verhindert, dass OS X auf nicht-HFS formatierten Datenträgern, also nicht-Mac-Datenträgern kleine Hilfsdateien erstellt. Diese nennt man "Resource-Forks". Sie heißen üblicherweise DS_Store, ._Dateiname oder einfach .Ordner
Diese Dateien werden vom Betriebssystem erstellt, um ua. eine schnelle Dateisuche zu gewährleisten. Doch sie stören die Funktion der Cowon MP3 Player. Auch andere Geräte wie zB. diverse Autoradios werden in der Funktion gestört, wenn man einen USB-Stick am Mac mit Liedern befüllt.
Das Tool BlueHarvest arbeitet im Hintergrund, man kann den Player dadurch genauso wie einen normalen Wechseldatenträger befüllen, am Ende auswerfen und wird sich freuen, dass auch am Mac alles so problemlos funktioniert wie unter Windows."


Free translation (by me, not the Google translator :D):

"I had the same problem that my Cowon player bricked after plugging it on a Macintosh.
After a long search I found a solution for this problem: It's called 'BlueHarvest', which is a tool to prevent your Mac from writing small help files on non-HFS devices. Such help files are usually called 'DS_Store', '._filename' or '.folder'.
These files are created by Mac to provide a fast file search, but they also are the reason why most Cowons don't work normally after using them on a Mac. Other devices, such as car radios, also don't work normally when you put music on a USB stick on a Mac.
The program 'BlueHarvest' works in the background, so you can use your Cowon like any other removable volume. After unplugging your Cowon you'll be happy that it still works flawlessly."

[dlichtdotcom]

@'nw - cannot thank you enough!!! Especially for the free translation [thumbsup].
I can't wait to get home and download and try this. From what you've posted and I've read it's exactly the kind of advice and solutions I'm looking for.

[dlichtdotcom]

Looks like I celebrated to soon. The 3rd Cowon 32GB J3 is now bricked. Same thing as before with the loading bar getting stuck. The device was accessible for a short while last night but I was unable to reformat it.

Now it does not show up at all...*sigh*[sad]