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[tej]

I thought I'd post this here because I figured you would understand....

Well, my Maxtor 27GB just went south. This was my scratch drive for video editing. It had been acting funny for several days, but rather than do the smart thing and pull it, I kept running it in my PC so I could pull off the work in progress files before it died completely. After all, it was just a scratch disk, right? No big deal....

Well, while transferring the files to my IBM 80GB, it managed to lock up W2K Pro completely. The problem is, W2K was apparently writing to my IBM at the time it happened. The drive where I have (err...had) most of my music collection.  

OK, reboot, check the IBM, .....OK... all the file names and directory entries have been replaced by high level ascii characters... this is not good. Can't open the files, can't rename them, can't delete them. OK, try Norton Utilities, It can't even access them, but it suggests running scandisk on reboot... OK, I know this is not going to be pretty, but I can't think of anything else to try. Reboot... scanning... check the IBM... 8000+ files named  FILE****.CHK.

Well, now I'm out 6000 mp3's :p I think I have some of those on tape backup somewhere, but not all, not all by far...

Some of those went back to when Napster first came out. I think I still have the Napster original beta archived somewhere.

Tomorrow, I'm going out and buying one of those nice shiny new Maxtor external USB hard drives with the one-button backup system....

Tej

Listening to *nothing*

[RemyJ]

I'd try renaming all the files of any significant length to *.mp3 and try importing them with MJ.  If they had tags, you'll get back the library info and you can then do a rename file from properties.

[tej]

I thought of that, but the file sizes are all about 20% of what my average mp3 size was, I assume due to fragmentation. I assume the rest of each file got turned into free space on the drive....

That reminds me, add a good defrag utility to that shopping list for tomorrow

[Kurt Young]

Dude, I'm so sorry!  My 76GB IBM started throwing out write-behind errors today, and I was scared as hell.  Had my computer down for a few hours today making sure all was well.  I was lucky, and I'm sorry as all get out that you were't as lucky.

*pours out half of his fourty* this one's for my homie's music.

[phelt]

The best recovery tool that I've used is Easy Recovery Pro. Costs a lot of money ($500 US) but if you recover some irreplacable files it feels like it's worth every penny. A cool feature is that it allows you to ignore the drive's list of files and find the files manually. This is good when the Master File Table has been corrupted. I can't say for sure whether that's the case with your drive - I thought CHK's were Checkdisk data. You would need a way to burn a CD in order to use it - it makes a bootable CD in order to bypass Windows. Sorry to hear about your problem, and good luck!

[xen-uno]

Tell you what....

I've had (1) SCSI HD crash in ten years vs (5) IDE crashes in five years. While SCSI HD's are 2 to 4 times more expensive then IDE/ATA drives, they surely makeup for it in reliability and speed. The funny thing is in some cases the base mechanical package is the same between the two, with the only difference being the controller on the drive.

10^-27

[KingSparta]

I've had (1) SCSI HD crash in ten years vs (5) IDE crashes in five years.

I have had Maybe 10 SCSI drives And Maybe a bit more IDE. I think they are mostly the same like you said but the controler. IDE Drives 3 Year, And SCSI Waranty Is 5 Years.

I think it is really the brand rather than the type of drive.

EIDE has come a long way from back in the late 80's

[tej]

*pours out half of his fourty* this one's for my homie's music.

LOL! I just spit coffee all over my screen....

phelt,

Thanks for the link. They have a free download version that is supposed to be able to tell you whether or not your data is recoverable. I'll check it out when I get home... I dunno, the price is steep, but cheap compared to the time (years) it's taken to get to this point.

Ordered a Maxtor 5000DV today...Like I always say, nothing like a good, solid, up-to-date bit-for-bit backup.  

I was thinking of eventually moving to a RAID 5 setup for a home media server, but I don't think it could have saved me from two bad/corrupted disks at once - or my own stupidity, for that matter  

[John Gateley]

Raid 5 is part of a backup solution, but only part. It does not protect you from disasters that affect the box (like fire). You need backups in a physically different location as well.

j

[urlybird]

If you haven't done any updates to that bad drive I can send you a recovery program that has bailed me out of similiar  situations twice. I can't attach files here but if you send me your email will sent the file your way.

It scans the disk first and tells you what it can recover - it doesn't recover in place so you will need a disk with enough space to handle what you want to recover.

Email me at Mikel_Magnusson@bigfoot.com or message me your email.

[zevele10]

but when you start to have around 300 giga of music,how do you  back up it?
With cdr or DVD-r ? Or there is another way?

[KingSparta]

but when you start to have around 300 giga of music,how do you  back up it?

with another 300 gigs worth of hard drive(s)