Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[DV8]

I did something I probably shouldn't have but the consequences are disasterous.
While I was playing a particular album, I noticed the year tag was incorrect so I selected the entire album and went to retag it properly.
Probably shouldn't have tried to retag while an album was playing but when I went to retag, the music made an audible click and MC9 froze.
Not even a Cntrl-Alt-Delete would unfreeze it.
I rebooted and got a pile of errors on the disk that was playing the album and when Windows 2000 was back up the entire disk was wiped clean of data. Windows still sees the disk but it is empty.
What happened to the 20,000 songs I had on this disk?
I understand why MC9 might not like what I did but what happened to my data and why did it get wiped out?
Is there anything I can do from here.

W2K
RAID disk
MC9 V9.0.180

[JimH]

The program didn't create a disk problem.  You could try a disk recovery program, but don't do anything to the disk until you try it.

You may have other hardware problems.

[sraymond]

I trust your RAID array is intact, else Windows wouldn't recognize the drive.  I've often lost the RIAD array - sometimes able to recreate (aka repair) it and other times SOL.

But I've never heard of a RAID array just blanking out.

Are you sure the RAID array is intact?  What RAID level are you running?  Is it possible you lost a drive?

I know...  not much help - but the devil is in the details.

As Jim said...  whatever you do, DO NOT WRITE TO THE DRIVE in any sense.  Don't "initialiaize" the drive...  don't do 'nothing.  Until you understand what happened, that is.  Else, you'll lose whatever's on the array.

Why the RAID in the first place?  I do it for speed, but I think it's likely all for 'naught.  You should have seen my rage the last time I lost the array and couldn't recreate it.  Sheesh, you'd think I learn...

Scott-

[jam]

Chkdsk often erase the entire disk using FAT32 after pushing reset button.  In this case, RAID cannot help since an application is erasing it to make it clean.  If you see loooong chkdsk on FAT32 after pushing reset button, it is erasing your entire data like more than 90% probability.

However, I've never seen any of these problem on NTFS.  If you were using NTFS, it's really strange.

If you were using FAT32, I suggest you to use NTFS in future and some disk recovery programs to recover your files.  If you were using NTFS and got this problem, I have no idea...

[Living Dead]

With 20,000 tracks I'm guessing you were using RAID 0 to make a massive drive.  If so, my bet is either HD or RAID controller problem.  I don't think RAID 0 is a good idea for a music collection.  I really don't think RAID 1 is either, better to use the extra drive to make regular backups, that way if u have a software prob, virus, or just f* up, u still have the backup.  RAID really only usefull to prevent hardware failure or to change performance.

[KingSparta]

well if the drive was taken off line by the OS it may act the same way.

lets say this was a wire wire or a USB drive you may think everything is ok but the program reports no files.

what needs to happen is the drive to be turned off for a min or so and the system rebooted.

this happens to my firewire drives from time to time.

[Marko]

Are there any "affordable" data recovery solutions out there that can recover data from "striped" drive arrays? I'm not sure.

I've no idea what went wrong with your system DV8, but I know the pain you're in right now having been there myself before.

I can assure you, changing the tags on files MC may be playing won't present any problems like this. Something else has gone badly wrong. We cannot really offer too much advice without knowing which file system you were using. I would advise ditching the RAID setup though. I tried the striped array route once hoping for massive speed increases that were infact negligible. My Asus board, by way of a jumper setting allows the raid controller to be used as eide ATA 100 channels instead. I have 4 hard drives attached this way and things are still d*mn quick and for sure, a whole lot more stable.

Research your options re. data recovery. If you were using ntfs and your mft has gotten screwed, you may have to accept the data loss. Once you either have your data back, or accepted the loss, you must consider you disk setup. Will you persevere with the striping? If not, those disks that (presumably) you had in a striped array... I strongly recommend a low level format (check manufacturers website for tools) to completely remove any traces of the striping, as you will experience much wierdness and numerous errors on them if you simply attempt to perform a basic format then start using them as individual disks.

Either way, I don't envy you as you have some extremely time consuming tasks ahead of you.
Good luck with it all, let us know how goes it, ok.

-marko.

[ama_mmmc]

I just went through a HD crash in my laptop.  Very painful, although I am sure you do not need to hear that.  My data was from the last 7 years of work, and the last 1 year of personal.  I found a Data Recovery company that pieced my HD back together, and recovered about 90% of my data.  Most of the stuff was not needed, like the cookies, and internet history, but my personal and work files were not replacable.  I am almost finished coming up with a back up system, and have looked through all the files and the company was very succesful.  I am happy.  However, my wallet is not.  To give you a rough idea, there range was $600 to $3000.  I assumed it would be in the high 2's, but was pleasantly surprised when they came back with $900.  Let me know if you want the name of the company.

Good Luck

Oh yeah, I would have tried disk recovery programs, but my HD was not even recognized when I tried to reinstall the OS.  It kept telling me I had to install a HD to install the OS.

[zevele10]

I had the same problem.

Search the forum to find my post.
There is free programs to check your drive.
Free means they check the data you can recover.
After that ,up to you to buy it or not.

One was around the $60 price.

I do not think ,your problem is the same that the one i had :
Even with all the good hardware ,my drives where not able to get more than 137 Gb on it.
The minute i was at 137,00000000000000000001 GB of data ,all was lost.
The solution was a tweak in Windows 2000 registery - If i'am not wrong ,you can have the same problem with XP

[phelt]

GetDataBack is a relatively inexpensive data recovery program that operates within Windows. The trial version allows you too see what data is recoverable before you purchase it.

An app that works within Windows would seem to be the quickest solution given your RAID setup. Otherwise your recovery app would need to be able to incorporate a command-line RAID driver, or to be run after a bootdisk with such a driver. Even then, low-level recovery apps may completely ignore the drivers in favor of their own methods.

I'm repeating the advice of others in this thread because it's important: do not write to the drive array before starting recovery attempts. This means saving files, installing apps, or using space on the drive for temporary operations. Do not defrag either.

As to MC being responsible for the failure, it seems highly unlikely. Quite often, an array that is approaching failure will finally choke upon a arbitrary action. It's natural to build a connection between a program that you're using at the time and the failure itself, but it's not necessarily logical or correct.