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Important info if you upgrade your computer!
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Important info if you upgrade your computer!

DJPCraze 10:07 AM - 5 February, 2008
Hey everybody,
I wanted to make sure I shared this info with other Serato users, as this is a rudimentary tip, but something I easially overlooked.

I've run Serato for about a year now on my PB G4 1 Ghz laptop, and everything worked smoothly. Recently I landed a gig at one of the local Hip-Hop radio stations doing fill in on nights and weekends whenever I'm needed.

I personally have a TTM-56 with an SL1 box, but due to the age of my laptop I didn't have enough internal storage on my computer. I've used an external USB HD ever since I got Serato, and I had no problems. I finally got jealous though of the other guys I see that can hold all their music right on their machine, so I upgraded my laptop with a new HD.

When I re-installed OS X on the machine, I used the option in the first time setup to copy over all my old documents, apps, and settings from another external USB enclosure I put the old drive in. Everything copied fine, and I proceeded to copy my music from my other external drive onto the internal drive. After copying, I ran Serato and extensively BPMed, Crated, and otherwise organized better the music I already had. The process took me about 3 days (I have about 14,000 songs I like to take with me).

After organizing, I checked everything for consistency with my SL1 with no problems. Here's where the fun begins.

I then went to the station to do a set... I plugged in my laptop and low and behold... kernel panic on their TTM-57SL. I rebooted, this time having the USB cable still plugged in, and no problems until I try to re-open Serato and then... kernel panic. This went on for about two more cycles then (at that point about 10 minutes to air) I ran over to the main studio, plugged my laptop into the network, quickly re-downloaded Serato 1.8, ran the installer and as it rebooted I ran back into the DJ studio. When I had Serato all loaded up I plugged in the mixer and all was fine. I then had about a minute to get my first song loaded and cued and I was on the air.

I guess I have discovered what isn't really a flaw in the software, but more of a combination of things to watch out for. The moral of my story is to MAKE SURE that after any time you re-install OSX to also make sure you run the Serato installer, and not just copy over your old installation. The TTM-57SL has drivers that need to be in place on the OS side that simply copying over the app won't take care of.

I almost lost a great opportunity on this one, and lucky my first instinct to fix the problem was right. I had no more issues after that... and it's something that I wish I would have thought of before hand. I thought everything was fine since the SL1 worked, but I was terribly mistaken.

Hopefully someone will find this info of some use...
djmoneyd425 10:41 PM - 5 February, 2008
yeah i always keep a copy of the original .dmg file so I can run a fresh install if needed for situations exactly like this...glad everything worked out for you tho.
DJ'Que 1:16 AM - 6 February, 2008
whenever you change os system or harddrives you have to reinstall serato or any other soundcard cuz when you install the system its install the basic drivers and not the serato drivers needed,you should of knew that.
DJ Rugged One 1:38 AM - 6 February, 2008
Definitely useful. I learned that the hard way but now, I do a fresh clean install regardless the outcome.
DJPCraze 7:43 AM - 6 February, 2008
You're right Que, I should have known that. However since OSX copied over everything else for me (right down to power management and even screen saver settings), and it worked fine with my SL1, I made the incorrect assumption everything was fine. I learned my lesson, and I'm just trying to save someone else the same trouble.
nik39 10:48 PM - 6 February, 2008
Repost in the Tips+Tricks section...
MSF 10:34 PM - 8 February, 2008
I just upgraded my powerbook g4 1.5ghz to a 250gb WD Scorpio drive.

I used superduper to backup *all* files to the 250gb WD drive.

my powerbook booted fine and SSL 1.8 ran fine using the 57SL.. I did not re-install anything...

I may have gotten lucky...
DJPCraze 5:07 AM - 9 February, 2008
Its probably your method... since you used the backup program to make a complete clone, it would copy the drivers for the hardware that are embedded in your install of the OS. My case was a little different as I did a clean install of OS X, then used Apple's file migration tool to copy the applications, system settings, and documents from the old HD into the new, clean installation.

I did that because my install of OS X (10.4.11) on this laptop was probably about two years old, and even though it isn't nearly as important on the mac as it is on a Windows machine, It was about time to start over new.

I'm not sold on Leopard yet...
Nappa 1:28 PM - 15 February, 2008
Quote:
I just upgraded my powerbook g4 1.5ghz to a 250gb WD Scorpio drive.

I used superduper to backup *all* files to the 250gb WD drive.

my powerbook booted fine and SSL 1.8 ran fine using the 57SL.. I did not re-install anything...

I may have gotten lucky...


I getting that 320gb WD drive for my Macbook book and I plan on using superduper. I hope everything works well. I let iTunes organize my mp3s so I should be ok but I'll be pissed if I have to redo all my cuepoints and loops.
nobspangle 2:15 PM - 15 February, 2008
Quote:
I'll be pissed if I have to redo all my cuepoints and loops.

Cue points and loops are stored inside the files themselves, they will be safe even if you just copy the files from one computer to another.
MSF 1:57 AM - 16 February, 2008
@ nappa - I got the 320G WD scorpio drive for my macbook.... I upgraded it about 2 weeks ago... so far so good... drive works great... boot up time is slightly longer, but otherwise, the drive seems to be working great.