MacPro HD isn't a valid audio recording volume, how to change this?

I've received that error before too...a lot of times if I just reset the computer/PRAM it goes away and I can set the drive to a Record volume. By the way, Pro Tools runs much better if you use another drive besides your boot drive for audio. I highly recommend buying an external or if your MP has another drive in it without all the applications on it, use that.

Second that. NEVER use the boot drive when you have four internal drive bays, use those for data, scratch, media. The less you force the boot drive to do double and triple duty the smoother everything runs.

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use a dedicated hard drive ONLY for recording audio tracks and immediately dismiss any attempts to use your bootable drive as the digital destination for any of your multi-track audio recordings. I speak as one who has researched this matter extensively (referring to almost every conceivable aspect of setting up an Apple-oriented pro-quality audio-recording system). Although I intend to use Logic instead of Pro Tools when I finally get an Apple Mac Pro, the external hard drive that I intend to use as my dedicated audio drive is the same one approved by DigiDesign for use with Pro Tools LE, Pro Tools HD, and Pro Tools M-Powered:

http://www.glyphtech.com/site/products/gt050q.html

If it is good enough for Pro Tools, then it is good enough for Logic (and for me).

Hmmm.. I've never experienced the error and I can record to the system drive so I know its possible.

Here is some advice from the trouble shooting topic on the DUC for ProToolsLE on Mac:

"Delete Pro Tools preferences.
-Go to Users > “your user name” > Library > Preferences
-Delete 'com.digidesign.protoolsLE.plist', 'DAE Prefs' (folder), 'DigiSetup.OSX' and 'Pro Tools preferences'.
-Empty trash, then restart the computer.

Repair Permissions
-Quit Pro Tools and launch Apple's "Disk Utility" application, located in:

MacHD>Applications>Utilities.

-Select your boot drive (the whole drive, not the volume underneath the drive)
-Go to the 'First Aid' tab and select "Repair Disk Permissions"

Apple recommends doing this any time you install new software, update your OS or reinstall any software.

Databases and Volumes

This step can be useful when receiving random 'assertion' or 'neoaccess' errors, especially when recording or saving.

-Delete the Digidesign Databases folders on the first level of all mounted hard drives, then delete the "Volumes" folder in MacHD > Library > Application Support > Digidesign > Databases.

-Empty trash, then restart the computer."

Here is the link to the troubleshooting thread:

http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=313423&page=0&view=collapsed& sb=5&o=7&fpart=1#313423

I also agree that you should plan on getting another drive to record to. I use external FW drives but your internal SATA drive bays would work as well.

Here is another link on the Digi site that has lots of info on drives:

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=54&itemid=23142

You still don't want to use boot drive.
Audio also is better to use dedicated drive, not stripped (but concatenated works very well).

You don't want the latency that either of the above adds to seeks and file I/O.

Here is the info straight from Digi:

"Hard Drive Requirements

For IDE/ATA, SATA, FireWire or SCSI Drives:

Minimum speed of 7200 RPM & average seek time of less than 10.0 ms
Boot drives may be used for audio tracks, however performance/track count may vary
Recording to boot drive not recommended or supported
For 24-32 tracks, drives must be dedicated for audio (internal or external)
Mac OS file system: Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+ format)
Mac OS Standard (HFS) formatted drives can be used for transfer, but are not recommended for recording or playback
Windows NTFS or FAT32 formatted drives supported on Mac OS X for transfer only
Pro Tools does not support RAID technology. Please do not activate this feature on any Pro Tools recording drives.
Supported formatting utility for IDE/ATA, SATA, FireWire, or SCSI drives: Apple Disk Utility, included with Mac OS X"

Sooo..

You CAN use the boot drive, but you may experience slow performance. If you use the boot drive, their tech support won't help you if you have related problems.

You SHOULD use a dedicated audio drive.

It should be formatted with HFS+.

It can not be a RAID drive.

I've talked to pro audio (fibre channel etc) and concatenated RAID is "fine."

I think using boot drive for scratch or anything (CS3, whatever your choice) should be avoided. OS and apps and nothing else.

My EXTERNAL firewire 250 LaCie is giving me the "Not Valid Audio Drive" message. It's always worked fine until today, when I started using a MBP and installed Leopard (Hastily)

Any info?

Thanks,

Jon

For me, this turns out to be a Leopard issue. Pro Tools won't run in Leopard, and all these valid audio drive messages are symptomatic of that fact - at least according to Digi. I'm going back to 10.4.10

My guess is it is FW400 issue in part. Also, you are aware this is Mac Pro and not Book forum? or you have both (Ned I know has MBP along with his Mac Pro).

Leopard rewrote the rules for disk arbitration and that change has meant drivers, controllers etc need to be updated which is ongoing and could take one or two .DOIT updates to OS X.

If you do go back, 10.4.11

I think Mac users are going to start looking at OS X the way PC users wait for an "SP1" before adopting.

Before you say "no" to Leopard, I would reformat any and all of your disk drives; then do a clean install; backup and then test, and only then import your files and update your software. That is my own method for moving to any new OS revision, anyway.