Why do my VMUs hold less than 200 blocks?

[dark]

I remember VMUs are supposed to hold 200 blocks for space. Well, 4 of my 5 normal sega VMUs have less than 5 blocks space left, and I needed to free up space for new saves, so I was looking at them in the bios menu...

I started counting the used blocks (from the saves) on a few of them which didn't appear to have that many saved games on them - and even though the VMU was registering as (for example) 1 block free/99% used up, the saved games were only taking up between 110-130 blocks depending on VMU.

I wound up formatting one of the VMUs, and it went back to 200 free blocks...

I was trying to think what would be doing this, and I noticed that two of the VMUs had the Skies of Arcadia logo on the VMU (if you've ever played SOA you know that it overwrites your nice VMU graphics). Could the logo somehow be taking up 40+ blocks of space? Or is it because I haven't formatted the VMUs in the last 10 or so years and doing partial deletions and saves is reducing the free memory (like a HDD that needs defragging?)?

Any ideas what causes the reduced capacity? And any ideas on how I can get back the full 200 blocks without having to wipe out all my saves? (there are some non-transferable saves, like PSO data)

[dark]

Oh hey, just found this interesting looking homebrew VMU manager for DC, through a google search
http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/release/about/

The VMU menu lets you:

* browse your VMUs (includes hidden files)
* unlock 44 extra blocks for your VMUs
* compress/uncompress VMU files
* draw your own icon for the VMU screen
* defragment the VMU files
* play VMU minigame on your TV with the VMU emulator
* change the background image of the Dreamcast's boot menu
* hexedit VMU files
* view PSO screenshots
* edit Gameshark CDX codes
* and much more..

I like the sound of being able to defrag the VMU, and also potentially unlocking an extra 44 blocks - upping the VMU capacity to 244 blocks if I'm understanding this correctly.

[CD AGES]

Yes, I've been using this for the past 2 years (its packed in the Capcom Fight'n Collection disc) on my VMUs as well as my 4X memory cards. I was so happy in knowing I can fit just about every fighter on just one VMU. Its awesome!!!

[elmagicochrisg]

Those 44 extra blocks might be handy for a Half Life save... ^^

[Anthony817]

I never save my game unless it is very low. My Blue Shift is at 66 blocks, but I seen it get like 165 before lol.

When it asks if you want to save, just skip it and play a little longer till the save gets smaller.

Anyway, VMU Tool is something I been using since 2009, and those 44 extra blocks come in handy. If you have 4 save devices like I do, unlockeing the blocks on all of them almost makes it like I got an extra VMU out of it.

[CD AGES]

Anyway, VMU Tool is something I been using since 2009, and those 44 extra blocks come in handy. If you have 4 save devices like I do, unlockeing the blocks on all of them almost makes it like I got an extra VMU out of it.

Yes! Agreed, just about all my 4X MU's are unlocked to have 44 addition blocks on each page!

Hey Anthony817! Nice to see u on the forums. Seems like its been a while.

[Anthony817]

Hehe yeah man, I been taking more time off lately, but still plan on checking all my regular sites.

Seems like Dreamcast news just keeps coming slower and getting scarcer than it was in the past 3 years since I been in the community.

I am still at the other site moderating and keeping trolls at bay.

[CD AGES]

Well its nice to see you again here, and happy to know you're still keeping the Dream alive

[dark]

So I downloaded and used the tool today which I linked to above. It did indeed unlock 41 extra blocks. BUT, using the defrag option did not fix the problem I had with my VMU only allowing about 110 blocks for saving (including already saved games).

Another problem was that after I used the "defrag" option, a few of my game saves became corrupted. JGR, PSO, Shenmue 1, Gigawing 2, Tech Romancer, MVC2, these saved games were on different cards (I defragged all my cards) and got corrupted, the file still registered as on the vmu, but the vmu icon in the bios displayed an "X" along with gibberish for the text. When trying to load these saved games, the games would recognize that there is a save there, but would not load it, typically saying "this file cannot be loaded." All in all, I wound up transferring files between VMUs and ultimately going for a reformatting of two of my VMUs that had the "fewer than 200 blocks" problem - this fixed the "fewer than 200 blocks" problem, however I noticed that a VMU I formatted only three months ago is now permitting fewer than 200 blocks as well - what a bunch of bull shit with these VMUs lol. I think my new strategy will be to completely fill up the 200 blocks of a vmu quickly, as it is the lingering free space on the vmu which seems to mysteriously decrease over weeks/months.

At any rate, It's a cool utility, and the redeeming thing after the corruption incident is that the disc has hundreds of saved games on the disc that you could use to replace your lost file. Unfortunately this works better for some games more than others. I lost my PSO character from 2001 and my half finished Shenmue I data. Replacing them with a different PSO character or a 100% complete Shenmue I game save from the CD just isn't the same :/ At least I don't have to unlock everything in MVC2 again, though.