Hard Drive Error on DL32r

[WK154]

To answer the OP original issue this problem has been there since 2015. Search for "Archwave" it will get the topic fairly well covered. Too bad Mackie only hints at it in their manual with a note stating that it will take "some time" to complete the recording process. No clue as to how long. The Eject command will shorten this time since it is the only other mechanism that will finalize the FAT. If you loose power and are in this critical time period you're out of luck. Take your time to shut down or use the eject command to be safe. There are three processors involved that affect the time delay, four if you include the operator. The delay might be able to be shortened somewhat depending on the operator (number of beers  ) or a wired connection to the mixer (WiFi is much slower). As to the "formatting of the drive" that is very questionable and interchangeability would be in question of the FAT32 file system. Any indication as in Mackie's manual raises red flags as to being a conforming FAT32 file system driver (buggy driver that may not be able to be fixed or additional data not in the Standard but used by Mackie which is bad practice). The Archwave processor (3rd party product) handles all the disk writing/reading via USB to the drive and communicates with the mixer via a parallel interface receiving commands and data (bidirectional) from the mixer's processor. Dan the Microsoft "issue" was a design and feature option to either write direct or cache the data in the OS (your choice). There is also a discrepancy between Mackie's DL1608/806 and the DL32R in file size Dl1608/806 handles 4GB while the DL32R only 2GB. Possibly a limitation of the Archwave product. The lack of sub-directories below Music is also a poor choice and a indication of a incomplete FAT32 driver.

[JohnMHoyt]

To answer the OP original issue this problem has been there since 2015.

I find the recordings to be very reliable, and understand the limitations. So for the most part have found work-arounds to insure all goes well.

There have been a couple large drives that have attempted to use that did not function, and one SSD drive also refused to be seen and formatted, but I get it. Hard disk recording wasn't ever a priority in my opinion - from the get-go everyone said that if I wanted to record with this board, I should just use a computer.
I don't WANT to use a computer - so I live with the limitations.   It's still better than any other board I've used or owned in that regard, though another brand has a card you can add that seems to be doing very well for direct multi-track recording.

The time to get a recording started (or stopped) is absolutely not a certainty.   Everything you said applies.  Slow wifi, slow hard drive, board busy doing it's real job of mixing, and yes, the beer factor, can all affect how fast that starts and stops.   
I'm good with it - so long as everyone understands that it could be 2 seconds or it could be 20...   Yes, 20, when recording 22-24 tracks, I have had it take a LONG LONG time to start/stop.

Oh, you mentioned power loss during recording.   That's happened, as has the old problem with my old board, where it just stops responding (lock up) and the recording lost.   =( 
Of the hundreds of recordings, it has happened half a dozen times.

all-in-all, I'm pretty happy.  Could it be better? Sure, there's room for improvement but I feel there's other areas that most people would prefer energy were put into =)

[RoMack]

Absolute truth! Prior to Master Fader 4, everything was perfect! With the release of Master Fader 4, regular problems began with any hard drives! Developers do not want to see this problem! I personally tried about 15 hard drives. With everyone there were problems with both HDD and SSD. The problems were with the definition and formatting above all. The USB driver does not work correctly, that's for sure! Even rebooting DL32R does not help often.There were no problems directly recording into the DAW. Sorry for my bad english!