total sd card data loss

[sheepless]

pretty sure my card was nearly at full capacity. when I asked here a month or so ago I was told the machine would drop oldest data to write new data, which made sense.  

as usual I had masked off a couple/few times last night prior to the problem. remasking at ~5am I noticed the machine display said wait while preparing the card. same message (I think) that I get each day when I return the card to the machine after downloading to oscar. I thought it odd but waited until the message cleared and went back to sleep. now the only data on the card is for a 52 minute session after that. all folder and file dates on the card are 2/20/21. 

the card and card writer worked fine before and after this event. what could have caused this? did the resmed vauto automatically and without asking reformat the card when it got completely full? 

I did turn off the machine and unplug it yesterday to use the power cord on a different machine long enough to check some settings. in addition I had turned power off at the circuit breaker a couple times over the previous 2 days to replace some wall switches. the timing doesn't fit and because I had used the machine - even masking off a couple times - before I got that preparing card message, I don't think these had anything to do with the problem. 

also, I reinstalled oscar over the existing install, yesterday I think, but I don't see how that would affect the card either.

I don't think there's anything to be done about the missing card data but wonder if I should anticipate losing all data when this and the cards in my other 2 machines reach capacity.  

I see that there are debug.txt's in the pc data folder. is there anything to look for there that might explain this?

[becker44a]

Hi Sleepless,
I had a similar experience with my A10 For Her a while ago, and I posted this thread:
http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...ht=sd+card

The S9 series machines would overwrite and delete hi-res data after about a week, but the new machine reformatted the card, erasing everything.  I had always kept a copy of the SD card on my computer, but this event prompted me to come up with the backup script I posted to the thread above.  I know that Sleepyhead and now OSCAR do a backup of the data when you import, but I wanted to keep the raw data in order to import from scratch if necessary, and I'm glad I did.  when this reformat happened to me, all I lost was one day, and now never again.

At this point, I let the card accumulate 3 months of data, and then I stash the copy, wipe the card and start over (every quarter).  This way, if I want to import an entire year, I just import 4 times, and I'm done.  If I need to import into some other software (not too likely), I have the images to work with.

Hope this helps

[sheepless]

well, my memory sucks. I even replied in the thread you linked.

so it seems the machine wipes the card when it gets full rather than overwriting older data.

your solution looks practical but probably more complicated than I can handle. I figure the lost card data is on my computer in the oscar folders. worst case, I manually backed the card up a couple weeks ago. I thought it superfluous but now I'll make it a point to back it up more frequently.

thanks becker44a!