DV128 SD card format bug (for lack of anywhere else to put it...)

benl

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The DV128 appears to be a precursor to the current B1M motorcycle dashcam, and I believe ceased manufacture early in 2020. There is no sub-forum here on DCT for the DV128, so I'm posting here as the next best location. Hope nobody minds.

They might be EOL, but they're still commonly available as of early 2021, and I bought two. Turns out there's a pretty major bug in the way the DV128 handles SDCard formatting so in an effort to save anyone else from wasting hours on it, here's the issue and workaround:

Blueskysea DV128 firmware: 202001071018
The issue: when formatting the card from the DV128 it does not create a partition table. This is a pretty major bug and means the cards can't be read by any operating system. If you happen to have formatted the SDCard in the right way before then later formatting it on the DV128, it works only due to the previous correct and complete partition and format. If you take a card that has been used for other things, e.g. as ExFAT, and format it only in the DV128 then it will not work when you move it over to the computer. This happens for 32, 64 and 128 GB cards.

The workaround: first format the SDCard to FAT32 with an MBR partition table, e.g. via macOS Disk Utility or the Windows guiformat.exe tool from http://ridgecrop.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm THEN reformat the card in the DV128 when it prompts to after inserting the card. You can freely "reformat" the card in the DV128 as you wish from then on.

Once you've done this, the card should be writeable by the DV128 and be readable on Win10, macOS and Android.

I wrote to Blueskysea (support@blueskysea-inc.com) and they replied quite quickly; unfortunately they acknowledged the bug and that other customers had reported it, but as it's an "outdated item" they won't be releasing a fix.


Also, another tip: the dashcam continues to record to the card for a few seconds after you've turned it off, if you yank out the card too quickly you'll get data corruption. Best to stop recording by pressing the "OK" button, then remove the card. The dashcam is stopped recording when the blue status LED stops flashing.

Ben
 
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Hi Benl

Thanks for posting this - i too am having the same issue with the dv128 and i have followed your instructions

however after using 4 different cards, 4 different sizes of sd card and formatting all as Fat32 then formatting in the unit also .... after 90 seconds of recording the video freezes and all further recording 3 min segments are unreadable

if anyone knows a work around to help with this then i would much appreciate it
 
Though I've yet to deploy the two units I have to "the field", I've tested them by recording for a couple of days and they've worked as expected aside from the format partitioning bug. Haven't seen any freezes.

Perhaps try another power source?
 
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