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[Theogenes]

Hello to all!! I am having some difficulties with getting some of my files to play with MC 17, and after searching around here and elsewhere, I have not yet found a solution to the problem. I sent my log files to the guys at MC and they directed me to post a question here. As I've tried a number of different things and there's quite a bit of (possibly) relevent info, I'm just going to break it down in bullet points.

I'm open to trying just about anything, and I am VERY appreciative of any help I can get!! If this has been answered elsewhere, then I'll apologize in advance and ask for a link to the answer-- but I haven't found it thus far. Okay, here we go:

• The overall issue is this: I have a large number (19,000+) of files that I cannot play in MC. Additionally, when I attempted to build my library, I noticed that got approximately that number of "skipping bad file" messages, and until I cleared my library, MC would start up, work for approximately 2-3 minutes, and then crash almost every time. After clearing my library, the application will not close, but it still will not play the skipped files.

• I primarily listen to music, and that is the focus of the issue. It may afflict video files as well, but I use them so infrequently I have not seen that issue (yet).

• While attempting to resolve the issue, I went back to MediaMonkey. I updated to the most recent version of their s/w, and when I try to initialize the program, it says it is updating my library, then crashes.

• Some of the files that I tried to play in MM or MC will play without issue in Windows Media Player 11.0.6002.18311, others will not play. I've been unable to determine a steadfast criterion that causes a file to play or not play.

• The error message I get when trying to play something in MC is this: "Something went wrong with playback. Details: The file could not be opened for read access (error 1920). Check permissions, ownership, and that the file is not in use by another program."

• The error message for WMP is this: "Windows Media Player encountered a problem while playing the file. For additional assistance, click Web Help." The Web Help link pulls up a page that says, among other things, "You've encountered error message C00D11B1 while using Windows Media Player."

• MediaMonkey does not provide an error message. It just rolls over and dies wordlessly.

• While researching the issue, I decided that my problem had something to do with file permissions. So I looked up how to edit permissions online, followed the steps, and removed 'Read-Only' access to the drive containing the majority of the files. I also attempted to give 'everyone' full control, but am not sure if it worked. (When viewing the properties of randomly selected problem files, all user names have Read access checked, but there is no user name for 'Everyone.' If this strikes you as a dumb thing to say, then you probably start to understand my lack of knowledge on these things.)

• At this point, we are several steps down the troubleshooting path from the original issue. (I prefer to figure things out on my own and learn something before asking for help, which is sometimes not particularly wise). The problem first became apparent after doing a large number of Windows updates to my machine. After that, my WHS (a HP MediaSmart EX495) would not connect to my network or computer anymore. I tried a number of things to resolve the issue, including uninstalling and reinstalling the WHS connector, plugging the server directly into the computer in order to ensure I had the correct software on my computer from the server (which did not work), etc etc. After getting irritated, I just removed the HDD (there was only 1, I planned on expanding later) and put it in an external enclosure and plugged it into my computer. This regained me the ability to see the files on the drive, but then I ran into the issues listed above.

I have pasted my system info below. I also have several different exported log files and library backups. If need be, I can try to upload or copy/paste them here-- but the log files are VERY large in text form, as I have a LOT of files.

System Info (from MC):
Media Center
    Install Path: C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 17\
    Interface Plugins: TiVo Server (not running)
    JRMark: never run
    Library: 2085 files, 2.8 MB in library, 24.0 MB in thumbnails
    Resources: 75.9 MB memory, 489 handles
    Version: 17.0.147.0 Registered
Computer
    ACPI x86-based PC (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Disk drives
    Generic- Compact Flash USB Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Generic- MS/MS-Pro USB Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Generic- SD/MMC USB Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Generic- SM/xD-Picture USB Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Hitachi HDT725032VLA SCSI Disk Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Hitachi HDT725032VLA SCSI Disk Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    ST315003 41AS USB Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Display adapters
    NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT (driver 8.17.12.9573)
DVD/CD-ROM drives
    ATAPI DVD A  DH16A3L SCSI CdRom Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Human Interface Devices
    HID-compliant consumer control device (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    HID-compliant device (driver 6.1.6002.18005)
    HID-compliant device (driver 6.1.6002.18005)
    HID-compliant device (driver 6.1.6002.18005)
    USB Human Interface Device (driver 6.1.6002.18005)
    USB Human Interface Device (driver 6.1.6002.18005)
IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
    IDE Channel (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    IDE Channel (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers
    AGERE OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Keyboards
    HID Keyboard Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Memory
    Free Physical Memory: 1.0 GB
    Total Memory: 3.0 GB
Mice and other pointing devices
    HID-compliant mouse (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
Modems
    PCI Soft Data Fax Modem with SmartCP (driver 7.74.0.0)
Monitors
    Generic PnP Monitor (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
Network adapters
    NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps Ethernet  (driver 67.8.9.0)
Operating System
    Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit
Portable Devices
    Compact Flash    (driver 6.0.6002.18112)
    MS/MS-Pro        (driver 6.0.6002.18112)
    SD/MMC           (driver 6.0.6002.18112)
    SM/xD-Picture    (driver 6.0.6002.18112)
Processors
    AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
Sound, video and game controllers
    Microsoft Streaming Quality Manager Proxy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    PlayOn Virtual Audio Device (driver 6.0.6000.5)
    Realtek High Definition Audio (driver 6.0.1.5789)
    ViXS PureTV-U 48B0 (NTSC/ATSC Combo) (driver 6.1.100.18)
Storage controllers
    Microsoft iSCSI Initiator (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller (driver 9.99.0.4)
    NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller (driver 9.99.0.4)
Storage volume shadow copies
    Generic volume shadow copy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    Generic volume shadow copy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    Generic volume shadow copy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    Generic volume shadow copy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    Generic volume shadow copy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
    Generic volume shadow copy (driver 6.0.6000.16386)
System devices
    ACPI Fan (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    ACPI Fixed Feature Button (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    ACPI Power Button (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    ACPI Thermal Zone (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Consumer IR Devices (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    Direct memory access controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    High Definition Audio Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    High precision event timer (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    IPBusEnum Root Enumerator (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Microsoft System Management BIOS Driver (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Motherboard resources (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Motherboard resources (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Motherboard resources (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Numeric data processor (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management (driver 4.6.2.0)
    PCI bus (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard ISA bridge (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard RAM Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    PCI standard RAM Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Programmable interrupt controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    System board (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    System CMOS/real time clock (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    System speaker (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    System timer (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Terminal Server Keyboard Driver (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Terminal Server Mouse Driver (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    UMBus Enumerator (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    UMBus Enumerator (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    UMBus Root Bus Enumerator (driver 6.0.6001.18000)
    Volume Manager (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Universal Serial Bus controllers
    Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    USB Composite Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    USB Mass Storage Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    USB Mass Storage Device (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    USB Root Hub (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
    USB Root Hub (driver 6.0.6002.18005)
Windows SideShow
    Windows SideShow Driver for Logitech monochrome devices (driver 3.3.107.0)
    Windows SideShow Driver for Logitech QVGA devices (driver 3.3.107.0)


Hopefully this provides enough information to get a handle on a solution. I will look back at this later today, and if I can't get it figured out today, it will probably be at random late hours at night for the rest of the week (I work 60+ hours a week, retail hours), so if I don't reply immediately, please know that I WILL read it and and I definitely do appreciate the help, I just have to come back to this as my work schedule allows. I'm thinking that something happened with my server, which caused my file permissions to change somehow (as it seems that the vast majority of the problematic files are on the drive pulled from my HP server), and that's causing the issue. Then again, I am certainly no expert here, so I'm open to other thoughts or suggestions.

My apologies for the long post, but I wanted to get all the info I could together so I could increase my chances of resolving this, and maybe get an answer for anyone else who runs into this in the future. Thank you in advance for any and all help you guys can provide!!!

-Burnley (aka Theogenes)

[JimH]

I wonder if the hard disk has problems.  You might check it.

[Matt]

Thanks for posting here.  I saw your log (by email) a couple days ago.

We were failing to analyze all the FLAC files you had.

I think they're either corrupt or there's a file-system permissions issue.

Copy a few files to a new folder like C:\Test.  Then use those files.  Do they work?

[Theogenes]

I wonder if the hard disk has problems.  You might check it.

Sounds reasonable enough. Silly question-- how would I go about checking it?

Also, I do have some files on the disk that play-- don't know if that has any bearing or not. Still willing to check and see if the HDD is bad though!

[Theogenes]

Thanks for posting here.  I saw your log (by email) a couple days ago.

We were failing to analyze all the FLAC files you had.

I think they're either corrupt or there's a file-system permissions issue.

Copy a few files to a new folder like C:\Test.  Then use those files.  Do they work?

My apologies, one thing I neglected to mention was that in attempting to find an answer, I noticed that several threads mentioned changing one of the directory names and then either trying to play or trying to re-import. I did this, and I think MC found a few more files, but not very many. Would this work, or would I need to actually copy over to another drive? (Copying might prove problematic-- I'm fairly certain I don't have remotely enough space on any of my other drives to move all my files over and back again).

EDIT: Or were you suggesting I do it on a small number of test files and then try it? I'm going to do that now... Thank you!!

[audioriver]

Sounds reasonable enough. Silly question-- how would I go about checking it?

Go to the hard disks' manufacture website. They usually offer a tool you can download, that performs these tests.

[Theogenes]

Okay, tried to copy over one album that was not playing in MC onto another drive to see if that fixed it. The file wouldn't even copy-- I got the following error message:

"An unexpected error is preventing the operation. Make a note of this error code, w hich might be useful if you get additional help to resolve this problem: Error 0x80070780: The file cannot be accessed by the system."

A quick Google search for 'Error 0x80070780' returns several WHS-based forums, including this link: http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/846-help-with-file-recovery/, which talks about 'pointers' and 'tombstones.' Is it possible that these files are somehow links or shortcuts to the actual files, which are stored elsewhere? Or am I way off base here?

Thanks again!!

[Theogenes]

Go to the hard disks' manufacture website. They usually offer a tool you can download, that performs these tests.

Gotcha, I'll pop the drive out now, look it up, and give it a shot!! Thank you!!

[Theogenes]

Go to the hard disks' manufacture website. They usually offer a tool you can download, that performs these tests.

Okay, tried that, and now it gets curiouser and curiouser...

Downloaded SeaTools for Windows from here: https://apps1.seagate.com/downloads/request.html

Ran it, popup says "SCSI: Scanning for supported drives. Please wait...", and everything looks normal. After a few moments, I get this:

"Fatal Error: Device Discovery
Argument 'Length' must be greater or equal to zero. System.String
Mid(System.String, Int32, Int32)"

I did see a note while digging for the SeaTools app that said something about a firmware bug keeping one from being able to access files on the drive... Maybe we're onto something here?

Any ideas what the gibberish in that fatal error message means?

EDIT: I also went back and found another Seagate application that is supposed to make sure you've got the right model number for your drive called Drive Detect (here: http://support.seagate.com/firmware/drive_config.html). However, when I run it, it just sits there with no drives found.

EDIT 2: Okay, so there's ANOTHER application for Seagate drives in non-Seagate external enclosures here (http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/213111en), which DOES detect the drive, and then proceeds to tell me things I already know (S/N, model number, firmware version), and then when I select "Check new firmware," it merely opens up the same window for me to enter in the drive info, which takes me back to the same download page, and the download again gives me the Fatal Error message above.

I feel like I've pissed off Lawnmower Man or something here... I'm guessing the problems with running the firmware update on the drive are related to it being in an external enclosure, but I don't have any space left in my machine to add it on directly (or I would've done that first). Is this my next step, or am I missing something?

Thanks as always!!

[JimH]

I don't know what that is, but if you have any other drives installed, unplug them.  Even thumb drives, etc.

[Theogenes]

I don't know what that is, but if you have any other drives installed, unplug them.  Even thumb drives, etc.

The only drive I have not directly mounted is the one in question that contains my files, and it's in an external enclosure. Should I remove one of my other drives that are actually directly connected and try hooking it up that way?

[JimH]

Internal hard disks are not a problem.

[Theogenes]

Internal hard disks are not a problem.

Gotcha!! Does that mean it would be wise to take the drive I currently have externally mounted (that contains the majority of the problematic files) and mount it internally instead?

[Scolex]

Gotcha!! Does that mean it would be wise to take the drive I currently have externally mounted (that contains the majority of the problematic files) and mount it internally instead?

Yes even if only temporarily as a trouble shooting step and to check for a firmware update.
You may also download crystal disk info to see what the drive offers via SMART details.
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

When you install the drive internally you may need to change the assigned drive letter to match it's currrent one since Windows will sometimes set drive letter based on which SATA port it is connected to.

[Theogenes]

Okay, I've got the drive mounted internally now and am attempting to update the firmware. I can browse the filesystem on it, but my computer is CRAWLING on doing anything. (I'm typing this on my tablet b/c even Chrome is creeping at the moment). Definitely not going to be a long-term solution on the internal mounting.

Will keep you apprised!

[nwboater]

I don't think you can just remove a drive from a WHS computer. I believe there is a procedure you need to go through first in WHS.

Questions:

1. Did you say you only have one HD in the WHS? If more than one, part of the problem may be the way WHS shares files between different hard drives.

2. Before you removed the drive from the WHS did you try to Copy a few of the files to another computer to see if they would play? If so what were the results?

I did some damage to some of my files by doing some file activities with Windows Explorer instead of via the normal WHS procedure. I found it's very finicky this way.

Rod

[Theogenes]

Thank you for the feedback, Rod!! To answer your questions:

1. Did you say you only have one HD in the WHS? If more than one, part of the problem may be the way WHS shares files between different hard drives.

-Yes, there was only one HDD in the server. I've actually just attempted to update the firmware on it-- more on this below.

2. Before you removed the drive from the WHS did you try to Copy a few of the files to another computer to see if they would play? If so what were the results?

-Yes, I tried to copy some of the files that MC wouldn't play over to another drive. It didn't work; the files would not even copy, so I couldn't determine if they would play on another drive.

I did some damage to some of my files by doing some file activities with Windows Explorer instead of via the normal WHS procedure. I found it's very finicky this way.

I really hope I haven't done any damage to my files... This is almost everything I've got.  When I look at the properties for a given file, everything looks right-- the file size, file extension, etc. I don't know why or how it could be corrupted or damaged, but I guess my lack of knowledge is part of the problem.

As for the drive itself: I managed to mount it internally, the drivers installed fine, etc. I was able to browse the files on the drive, but the same test files that were working before were still working, and those that were not still weren't. After some additional work, I got the Seagate firmware update utility to run, and the system rebooted and said it was doing the f/w update normally. After rebooting, the situation with the drive appears to be exactly the same-- I can see the files but can't open them. Also, when I use either of the disk detection apps from Seagate (for internally or USB-mounted drives), they do not see the drive at all-- they just sit there empty. The SeaTools app did the exact same thing it was doing before, throwing up a Fatal Error when it tried to find the drive. I left them for a while to see if it was just going slowly, but they never found the drive, and the apps appeared to still be responsive. With that said, I can't tell if the firmware update was successful or not, because the only methods I'm aware of to check it (the Seagate apps) aren't finding the drive. Sigh.

I'm going to shut down, remove the drive, and remount it externally again and see if the USB drive checker app will find it there and tell me if the f/w update was successful. This is about to drive me nuts...

Thanks for all the feedback so far!! Any other thoughts on things I can/should try? Or something I can do to alleviate the difference in how files are handled by WHS, as Rod mentioned?

[Theogenes]

Yes even if only temporarily as a trouble shooting step and to check for a firmware update.
You may also download crystal disk info to see what the drive offers via SMART details.
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

I somehow skipped doing this before now, so I went ahead and ran it (before I removed the HDD from my box, so it's still internally mounted) and it indicates that the Seagate is still running HP23-- so the f/w update didn't take. It also gives me a health status caution, with two highlighted areas, so I'm going to try to insert a screenshot here so you can look and tell me if one of these could be the source of the issue:



What do you think?

[Scolex]

Based on those SMART details the drive is failing or at least suffering from reduced performance.
You can find some details about what the information means here
Given the low number of hours I would contact Seagate to see what they say and make a backup before it is too late.

[gvanbrunt]

I agree with Scolex, the drive is failing. Even without the tests, that was my first thought based on symptoms (I've been doing this for 20 years). While a small number of redirected sectors could be normal, it isn't if there are continued problems with the drive. HD's are "self repairing" and will redirect bad sectors as part of their normal operation. In fact there often are some bad sectors right from the factory and the drive is fine. If you see that number going up after testing again in a few days, it is bad for sure. However, I would not wait, I would get it replaced.

[Theogenes]

Great feedback guys, thank you!! I looked up the S/N on my HD and Seagate says I need to go back through the place I purchased it (NewEgg, came preloaded in my EX495 WHS). I've reached out to their care department, so we'll see what happens!

In the meantime: any idea how to at least transfer this stuff off onto another drive?

[InflatableMouse]

I had 2 of those Seagates and had to RMA them because of the issues you describe. Seagate will exchange the drives no questions asked in most cases.

These Seagates are one of the worst line of harddrives they made recently. If you search the forums on Seagate for that type, you'll see that there is thread afther thread about reallocated sectors.

Go to http://forums.seagate.com/stx/ and search their forums.



You need to RMA that drive ASAP. Their support area on the website will tell you what to do and where to send it.

[Scolex]

What I would suggest is using a hard drive copy/recovery program that can be run from a boot disk since they don't care about any permissions in Windows.
There are many to chose from just google it. I have used a couple of solutions from www.ntfs.com with great success in the past.

[Theogenes]

Okay, so after the Seagate website said I had to go back through the vendor from which I'd purchased the EX495, I reached out to New Egg, but they told me I was outside the 30 day period and had to contact the manufacturer directly, so now I've done that.

InflatableMouse, that is VERY interesting, and makes me at least somewhat hopeful that I'll be able to get this resolved!!!

Scolex, I'm looking at that website right now, and given my utter dearth of knowledge and experience, I'm guessing I'll probably end up going on your recommendation. Quick question: if I utilize one of these services, will I be able to recover the files on the drive before having another drive to move over to? (Can the recovery program 'work around' the bad sectors, I guess?) I ask b/c I'm guessing I'll have to send the HD to Seagate before they'll send me another drive, and I don't have anything here that I can copy all my files onto at the moment. If need be, I'll just get another hard drive, but naturally, this all comes as I'm saving my dosh for a trip to Jamaica in two weeks... Lady Luck just knows how to kick you in the giblets at the perfect wrong moment sometimes  

Mods: thank you for changing the name of the thread. I didn't mean to be negative or antagonistic, hope I wasn't perceived that way!

All: Thank you guys so much for your help!! There's not a chance in h#ll I would have figured this out on my own, and I've already learned a few things that I didn't know before starting. I'll try to keep you guys posted if there's anything else that might be of interest to other people with similar issues.

So with the assumption that I'm going to need another drive to try to recover my information over to, what are some good HDs to look at? (I'm a bit of an audio nutjob, hence the MC 17-- and as I currently have to have my computer and server in my listening room, I'd like to find something particularly quiet). Any suggestions on good, dependable drives that won't require me to engage in acts of moral turpitude to be able to afford them?

Again, THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me out with this!! I would have ended up crying like a baby if the whole drive had gone south on me before I could recover anything  

[Scolex]

Scolex, I'm looking at that website right now, and given my utter dearth of knowledge and experience, I'm guessing I'll probably end up going on your recommendation. Quick question: if I utilize one of these services, will I be able to recover the files on the drive before having another drive to move over to? (Can the recovery program 'work around' the bad sectors, I guess?) I ask b/c I'm guessing I'll have to send the HD to Seagate before they'll send me another drive, and I don't have anything here that I can copy all my files onto at the moment. If need be, I'll just get another hard drive, but naturally, this all comes as I'm saving my dosh for a trip to Jamaica in two weeks... Lady Luck just knows how to kick you in the giblets at the perfect wrong moment sometimes  

So with the assumption that I'm going to need another drive to try to recover my information over to, what are some good HDs to look at? (I'm a bit of an audio nutjob, hence the MC 17-- and as I currently have to have my computer and server in my listening room, I'd like to find something particularly quiet). Any suggestions on good, dependable drives that won't require me to engage in acts of moral turpitude to be able to afford them?

You could back up to optical media but given the size of the drive I am guessing you have a boat load of data so the number of discs required not to mention time prevents that from being reasonably feasible.
As far as HDD recommendation they are all a crap shoot as they all make duds but I have had really good success with Western Digital I have drives with more than 40,000 hours on them and they are still performing well. On the other hand I have had drives fail from virtually every manufacturer I have used
If you are only using the drive for media 5400RPM is fine to help with noise. On the other hand my media drives are WD Caviar Blacks (7200) which are the more performance based Caviar drives and they are not noticeably audible during typical media play. On the other hand my WD VelociRaptor 10K drive can be quite annoying at times but even it very rarely starts screaming when listening to music or watching a movie.
What I would do is buy a new drive and copy the files to it and then when I got my new drive back from Seagate I would either sell it to recoup a portion of the cost for the new drive or keep it as a backup drive that is normally not attached/powered up.


 

[InflatableMouse]

I understand you have not made any backups so far? That drive is your only copy of the music and it was an internal (the only?) harddisk in a WHS?

One thing that puzzles me is that the SMART warnings about reallocated sectors and soft-read errors (ie, read errors that can be corrected) should not result in corrupt files. The fact that so many of your files can't be imported or played back properly throws up red flags for me and I am confident that you have another issue as well. Both my drives didn't corrupt any files and I had many more errors in the SMART counters that you are seeing.

From what I gather:
- You updated WHS after which the shares became unreachable from your pc's
- You removed the harddrive and placed in an enclosure (USB? NAS?)
- You gained access to the files but about half of the files did not play
- You installed the drive internally, in Windows 7 and updated the firmware

I'll risk making myself very unpopular by saying this, but you've been somewhat reckless in your attempts to solve your problems.
- you should not have removed the harddrive from WHS to connect it to another pc
Different hardware, different drivers may access a drive differently, apply different offsets and what not, this may have led to the corruption in the first place. Windows doesn't just read a drive; it starts defragmenting files and consolidating allocation tables at will.

- You should not have updated the firmware.
You made no backups. Firmwares can completely destroy all data on a drive, beyond recovery.

What's done is done and you can't undo any of it. What you need to focus on right now is to try and recover what you can before sending the drive back to Seagate. In my opinion you need to place that drive back in WHS and try and work from there. I'm not familiar with that server hardware or with WHS itself for that matter, Is it headless or does it have its own monitor/keyboard/mouse? Can you logon to it directly? If you can, that would be preferred and you can work from there. Obviously you still need space to copy your files to.

But another thing to consider is that file corruption in music files may not always be as obvious as crashes or just not playing. Some files may simply play 4 minutes and then start to skip, simply stop playing or blow a tweeter with high pitched noises. You need to ask yourself if its worth the time to sift through it all or simply cut your losses and start over. I once lost my music files when I wasn't making backups and I recovered them from an ipod. Some freeware tool copied it all back from the ipod to my harddisk. Nice! Not quite. About 25% of it was corrupt but I only noticed it weeks later. For months and months I was running into corrupt files every now and then, and it could very well be some of them are still corrupt today.

The big lesson here is to make backups.

I am very sorry for your troubles and I sincerely hope you can get your stuff back, or at least the majority of it. Loosing stuff is not fun.

[JimH]

In my opinion you need to place that drive back in WHS and try and work from there. I'm not familiar with that server hardware or with WHS itself for that matter, Is it headless or does it have its own monitor/keyboard/mouse? Can you logon to it directly? If you can, that would be preferred and you can work from there. Obviously you still need space to copy your files to.

I agree that this would be good to try.

[Scolex]

InflatableMouse
I respectfully disagree on the installing a drive in another machine. I have installed drives in other computers countless times and never had an issue. NTFS is NTFS as is FAT or any other data format, they comply to a standard and can safely be transferred from computer to computer as long as they are using a compatible data/partition structure. It is no different than taking an eSATA drive and using it on several different machines.
The sector reallocation can come from many different things on a HDD as there are many things that can cause errors whether it be a bad cable, platter, memory, PSU or whatever so they only tell a portion of the story. The fact that the drive is part of a series that is known to have a high rate of failure and the described behavior had an influence on the suggestions.
I am not saying you or I are right/wrong just that part of what you stated is inaccurate.

Edit: Where you run into trouble is when you try to swap a drive and then boot from it due to the potential for a driver loading that can reek havoc on everything.

[InflatableMouse]

InflatableMouse
I respectfully disagree on the installing a drive in another machine. I have installed drives in other computers countless times and never had an issue. NTFS is NTFS as is FAT or any other data format, they comply to a standard and can safely be transferred from computer to computer as long as they are using a compatible data/partition structure. It is no different than taking an eSATA drive and using it on several different machines.

Generally speaking you're right. But brands like IBM, Dell, HP/Compaq may not adhere to the standards you're used to. I've had countless of compatibility issues in the past. Although they've bettered their lives, issues with pc clones still exist.

[Theogenes]

Just got off work! To reply to a few items here:

First of all, if the corrupt drive is indeed the problem, then I am solely responsible for the problems I'm having. While I'm no computer guru, I most certainly know that I need to back up my files, and even bought a server for that explicit purpose, but never got around to it. So don't think I'm absolving myself of my responsibilities here-- I'm just trying to find a way to weasel my way out of it on the back end, and I'll do whatever I can to make that work. I've had to learn quite a few lessons the hard way-- backing up my media is now one of them. But that's not going to stop me from trying to get as much of my stuff back as is humanly possible 

To be clear: the drive should not have failed, and especially not after less than 18 months of usage. But birds fly, water is wet, and hard drives fail-- I should have known better.

As far as being able to plug a monitor and keyboard in and run it directly: I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any kind of video card, and can't be directly accessed like that. I'd love to be proven wrong, though, so anybody with better information can feel free to teach me something here!

Thanks for the advice on the HDs... I looked up some Caviar Blacks on my lunch break. Pricey little #$%ers!! Going to keep an eye out for a decent deal and try to free up a bit of cash to snag one when I see it. Considering that the drive will be primarily for media files (mostly music, but some Blu-Ray and DVD rips as well), is there anything else that is particularly important? I read a bit about the various speeds (5400, 7200, 10000+), sector sizes, cache sizes, write speed, etc, but I'm not certain which criteria I should value most.

InflatableMouse: you mentioned that you feel confident that I have another issue lurking around beyond the hard drive itself. Any ideas what or where you think it might be? I'm not married to this solution, and I'm game to do whatever I can to fix it. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

All: so it sounds like the consensus now is to find somewhere else to move all my stuff (i.e., another HD), run one of the recovery tools, get everything moved over, send my HD off for a warranty swap (if possible), and set things up to properly back up in the future. That sound about right?

Again, guys, thanks for the help-- I'd have been up that notorious creek without that helpful paddle otherwise

[gvanbrunt]

InflatableMouse: you mentioned that you feel confident that I have another issue lurking around beyond the hard drive itself. Any ideas what or where you think it might be? I'm not married to this solution, and I'm game to do whatever I can to fix it. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

I'm not inflatableMouse, but I may have some advice here. It could be a malware issue. In some cases root kits trying to "hide" from the OS screw up drivers and result in problems reading the drive itself. You can download Malwarebytes or some other utility to do a check, however I would do that AFTER making a recovery disk. Here is what I suggest:

1. Stop using that drive ASAP. If it is failing, it will only get worse and you will recover less. That means disconnecting it from power in the computer.
2. Make a backup using a utility such as EaseUS Data Recovery wizard. There are others out there, but that is one I have used with good results a few times. To use it, it requires a new or seperate drive to copy the recovered files to, and a clean OS. Since we suspect you have malware on the computer it is in, move it to another computer for the recovery. There are a few different "modes" the software can operate in. If one doesn't get a good portion of the files, try another. And be prepared for a recovery to take DAYS. I've seen it run 48 hours on 1TB drive WITHOUT any bad sectors.
3. After the recovery, do a complete malware scan of the drive.

Thats about it in a nutshell. With a damaged drive, don't bother trying to recover using any "run of the mill" copy programs. It will hang forever on each bad sector and likely just take make less recoverable. I've looked for a free recovery utility, but in my experience, none have proven useful. If the data is important, it is worth $70. Just my 2 cents...

[InflatableMouse]

InflatableMouse: you mentioned that you feel confident that I have another issue lurking around beyond the hard drive itself. Any ideas what or where you think it might be? I'm not married to this solution, and I'm game to do whatever I can to fix it. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

What I meant is that the corrupted files are most likely not a result from the SMART counters that are failing. Although these counters are trouble and the drive should be replaced, they are at this point "only" warnings that permanent failure is imminent. A hard drive verifies every write action and has plenty of spare sectors for itself to reallocate failed writes, this is not uncommon. What is uncommon is the number of re-allocations, the warnings indicate that at this rate it will run out of spare sectors prematurely after which unrecoverable errors will occur.

I summed up the actions you took to see what might have been a cause for the corruption. Although I do agree with Scolex that swapping hard drives should not lead to any issues, from past experience with brands like Compaq/HP, Dell, IBM I know incompatibilities exist with PC clone hardware or their drivers. Its simply an option you should not rule out as a possibility.

I've been reading a bit about this server and the software that comes with it. Did you use any of the HP Software to catalogue/manage your media? Like the HP Media Collector? I think you mentioned having FLAC files, if you used the Media Colector did you do anything to have it handle the FLAC files? The reason I ask is that I read it doesn't support FLAC files. So if you somehow forced it to 'manage' FLAC files that could be another lead to the corruption that has occurred.

Either way it remains unclear and all we can do is take educated guesses at what happened. No one knows for sure and you know what? At this point it doesn't really matter anymore. Once data is corrupt you can't 'undo' the corruption even if you know what happened.

I still believe the only sensible thing you can do now is place it back in the HP Server and figure out which files are still good and back them up. Once that is done you can RMA the drive.

All: so it sounds like the consensus now is to find somewhere else to move all my stuff (i.e., another HD), run one of the recovery tools, get everything moved over, send my HD off for a warranty swap (if possible), and set things up to properly back up in the future. That sound about right?

Again, guys, thanks for the help-- I'd have been up that notorious creek without that helpful paddle otherwise

It depends on how the drive contents looks when you've placed it back. If the drive appears to working fine, you could run a Check disk. Recovery tools are useful when the boot sector, allocation tables or partition table is faulty. When a program 'corrupted' file contents, everything is technically seen in order and a recovery tool won't do anything. Honestly I'm not sure what you could do at this point to recover files beyond simply checking if they play or not. I don't think any program will help you "fix" corrupted FLAC or Mp3 files. If there is a tool to automatically scan if those media files are good or bad, that would speed things up but still won't recover bad files.

[gvanbrunt]

Given that fact that the drive tests as failing, but shouldn't be throwing errors that increases the likelihood of it being malware. If that is the case, using the drive in any way will only render the contents further unreadable. If it were my drive and I consider the contents valuable, I would not even consider figuring out what is wrong without making a "low level" back up before doing anything else. By low level I mean using software such as that I mentioned that accesses the drive at a very low level bypassing most of the regular Windows API's etc.

[Theogenes]

Update: I've contacted HP about getting the drive replaced, but honestly, I don't have high hopes that they'll replace it for me. (The date code on the HD seems to indicate it should be under warranty, but I purchased the server over a year ago, in March 2011). So I'm looking into trying to get some HDs to copy my info over to and start this thing over. If anyone has suggestions for places to find smokin' deals on WD Caviar Blacks (or something else that would fit the bill and be of sufficiently high quality to hopefully avoid this type of thing in the future), I'd love to hear 'em!

As far as the Media Collector: I messed around with it, but other than trying to configure it and play around with the streaming feature through the web portal, I really didn't do much with it. I probably haven't touched it in the better part of a year.

As soon as I have another day off, I'll move the drive back over into the server and try to determine what files are still good, etc. As soon as I have another HD to copy everything over to, I'll attempt to backup the files there, and run a recovery application and a malware sweeper. This sound about right?

Honestly, while I make an effort to see the positive in things as often as I possibly can, if this turns out to be the result of malware on my system, I'm going to be pretty ill. I've got all my security updates done, I keep my firewall on, I have AVG running in the background at all times, and I regularly run my virus sweeper, etc. Even though I'm pretty sure I must be the luckiest guy in the world (it seems I'm always winning a FREE NEW SUPER AWESOME IPAD 3 if only I'll just click right here), I don't fall for all the silly popups, and if I'm not sure about something I'll have AVG scan it before opening. I know that none of these things would make me immune, but I do feel like I've been aware of the possibility for problems with these suckers and I've done everything I know to do to avoid opening myself up to any of it. Does AVG suck, or is there some other problem here I'm not seeing? I just kinda doubt that there's a Stuxnet-level attack on my stuff, so it seems like an updated antivirus application should keep me in the green here... Thoughts? Better s/w I should be using?

On the EaseUS Data Recovery s/w: sounds like a great app!! And I know this is a silly question before I ask, but anyway: is there anything out there of similar (or better) efficacy that might be a bit less expensive? If not, that's fine-- but I'm getting ready to leave the country for a couple of weeks, and I'm trying to squirrel away as much as I can before I leave, and $70 on top of new hard drives does sting a little. Again, if that's the route that I need to go, so be it-- I just thought it would be reasonable to ask

Thanks as always, guys!! And if this does end up being malware, I'm going to go kick a kitten, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for it to be something more mundane and more easily resolved

[InflatableMouse]

I highly doubt you have a virus and I would advise not to spend any money on recovery programs.

[gvanbrunt]

I highly doubt you have a virus and I would advise not to spend any money on recovery programs.

There are many cases of root kits interfering with normal operation of hard drives. Root kits "go around" the operating system in order to hide from it. They bypass or replace normal access of drivers and Windows API's and are often buggy causing unpredictable results. I've seen this first hand several times, with exactly the same symptoms we are seeing here.

Furthermore, the very FIRST rule of hard drive recovery is to STOP using it and make a Backup. If you talk to anyone in the industry they will tell you that. Guessing as to the cause of something could render the data useless. Suggesting that someone do otherwise goes against what all experts agree is best practice. The question is: is the data worth more than the cost of a backup program. If not, don't waste your money. If so, don't risk your data.

[gvanbrunt]

I just kinda doubt that there's a Stuxnet-level attack on my stuff, so it seems like an updated antivirus application should keep me in the green here... Thoughts? Better s/w I should be using?

I doubt it is high level too, but never say never. I would suggest using MS's free software. It is actually highly rated based on independent tests. AVG doesn't rate as highly from the studies I've seen. If you don't like MS (or whatever) you can use Avast. Also highly rated and free.

As for malware, I oversee hundreds of computers and we have a very expensive system (Mostly McAfee) with multiple levels of protection. It is updated every hour. Our users do not have administrative rights to their computers. We patch our computers on a weekly basis. Despite this, we see infections at least once or twice a week.

You cannot depend on AV software to protect you from malware. It certainly helps, but is no where near perfect. The "bad guys" are no longer "script kiddies" but organized crime and recently governments. They have resources to pay for much more sophisticated threats. They modify the malware on a daily basis so it is not detected by AV scanners. They also commonly use 0 day (no fixes yet) security flaws to gain administrative access from non admin accounts. They also have used 0 day exploits to infect computers without having to click on anything. That is what I see on a regular basis. A huge change from 3 years ago.

The good news is, most of this is "drive by". Which means you have to visit a webpage that infects you. And\or be fooled into clicking on a link in a Phishing email. You would think this would be uncommon if your use your head. The company I oversee is mostly engineers, scientists and technicians and they get infected on a regular basis. So I would not call them dumb by any means, but everyone is vulnerable to lapses in judgement.

FYI, There have also been cases of malware spreading through ad's on some major web sites. Since then I think many screen their clients much better, but you never know.

[gvanbrunt]

And I know this is a silly question before I ask, but anyway: is there anything out there of similar (or better) efficacy that might be a bit less expensive?

Saving money is never a silly question. I've looked for free stuff, but haven't found anything really good or effective. However, I didn't do more than 15min of looking. At my pay grade it is cheaper to pay 70 bucks for software than to search for an hour for free stuff.  

My guess is there isn't much out there. The reason is this type of software must bypass the easy to use Windows API's to recover data, so skills to develop it are not common. Other wise the recovery software would "choke" the same as accessing a file from Explorer. And from experience, $70 is actually quite cheap compared to some of the high end software used in the industry. It is certainly cheaper than sending it off to a lab for recovery and coming back with a bill in the $1000's of dollars. I've gone that route as well for some completely dead HD's with valuable data on them.

If you do find anything, let me know. I've had to help recover data for friends etc and would like to save them from paying that as well.

[Theogenes]

Thanks for all the replies!! As a result of the feedback I've gotten, I've taken the following steps:

• Ran Windows Update and installed everything there. (There were only two updates, only one was listed as important, and it didn't seem to have anything to do with this, but hey-- couldn't hurt!)
• Updated AVG and ran a full search overnight at the highest settings I could find.
• Downloaded MalwareBytes free trial and ran it. It found three downloads it thought could be questionable, so I deleted 'em.
• Downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials and ran a full scan there.

As far as I can tell, I have no viruses, rootkits, or other forms of malware on my machine, and I'm fairly certain I don't have any uranium-enrichment centrifuges on my home network, so I hoping I'm good to go on this front. Of course, if someone had the know-how and requisite urge to get onto my system, I'm sure they could-- although there wouldn't be much point unless they wanted to catalog just how obsessively a person can look for any Radiohead music beyond the official canon

(Side note: I used Avast for years and thought quite highly of it, but finally switched to AVG when Avast went buggy and started bogging my laptop at the time down considerably. I read around on several reviews, and AVG was highly reviewed at the time. Seems like these AV programs just play musical chairs each year on the various rankings :p ).

So, with the probability of viruses and malware being hopefully reduced: what next steps would you guys recommend? If the recovery s/w was to fix the problems caused by wayward apps, I wouldn't need to try that now, would I? I guess my root issue is still being able to access the files themselves, after which I can look at getting new hard drives, etc. So here are my questions/thought at the moment:

• Is it possible that this is the result of some kinds of permissions or security setting? That was one of my initial thoughts, and I'm holding out some hope that this still might be the issue, and that there's a relatively simple fix for it.
• Is there any way of knowing whether the files themselves are actually corrupt, or simply not accessible for some reason?
• If the files are okay but inaccessible, what possible reasons (beyond the security question mentioned above) could there be for it?
• If the files are corrupt, is there any way of "fixing" them? Like a dummy, I do not have backups (that I know of) for the info on my server, and I'm assuming the answer here is no... But it's worth asking! I'm guessing a system restore point would not resolve this, right?
• Is there anything else here I'm possibly missing or overlooking?

Again, guys, thanks for all the help, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!!!!!!

[Scolex]

Have you gone to any of the files that will not play in explorer and right clicked them and checked their permissions?
There was another user that had some strange file access problems that were somewhat related to what you are seeing.
I can't remember exactly what the problem was but I was able to remedy it with a remote session.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=69928.msg471242#msg471242

[gvanbrunt]

Don't know if this is related, but some reading on WHS about certain files etc:

http://andrewchaa.me.uk/2009/05/10/the-file-cannot-be-accessed-by-the-system-after-deleting-windows-home-server/

EDIT: Actually after reviewing your first message, I'm pretty sure that is it. You need to turn on "show hidden files" and look in the DE folder.

[Theogenes]

H#LL YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

We have a WINNER!!!!! gvanbrunt, your link FIXED MY ISSUE COMPLETELY!!!! WOOOO-HOOOO!!!!!

Okay, so in case anybody else has this issue, I'm going to try to break out the steps, because it wasn't immediately apparent (to me anyway):

1). Follow the steps found here: http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whssoftware/thread/8b39a91b-8a9d-47d9-ae83-3d9427e3bf45

In case the link disappears, here are the steps copied and pasted:

If you did not re-use the old disk(s) in the new installation the procedure outlined below should do the trick. If you DID re-use the disks in the new install please explain what in detail how you did this.

If the old disk was the system disk in your previous install then you should find the original files  in a hidden folder "DE\shares" on the D partition of the original disk. If the old disk was a data disk in your previous WHS install then you should find the original files in a hidden folder "DE\shares" in the root of that disk.

Please note you may need to enable "view hidden files and folders" on the computer you are using to get the files:

Windows XP and Windows 2003

To enable the viewing of Hidden files follow these steps:

Close all programs so that you are at your desktop.
Double-click on the My Computer icon.
Select the Tools menu and click Folder Options.
After the new window appears select the View tab.
Put a checkmark in the checkbox labeled Display the contents of system folders.
Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labeled Show hidden files and folders.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide file extensions for known file types.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide protected operating system files.
Press the Apply button and then the OK button and shutdown My Computer.
Now your computer is configured to show all hidden files.
Windows Vista

To enable the viewing of Hidden files follow these steps:

Close all programs so that you are at your desktop.
Click on the Start button. This is the small round button with the Windows flag in the lower left corner.
Click on the Control Panel menu option.
When the control panel opens you can either be in Classic View or Control Panel Home view:

If you are in the Classic View do the following:
Double-click on the Folder Options icon.
Click on the View tab.
Go to step 5.

If you are in the Control Panel Home view do the following:
Click on the Appearance and Personalization link .
Click on Show Hidden Files or Folders.
Go to step 5.

Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labeled Show hidden files and folders.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide extensions for known file types.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labeled Hide protected operating system files.
Press the Apply button and then the OK button and shutdown My Computer.

2). Okay, so once you've done that, you should be able to go back to the drive that was originally (or is now, whatever) in your server, and you should see a folder named 'DE'. In that folder, there's another folder named 'shares.' And beneath this glorious, beautiful icon is ALL THE MEDIA THAT YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD LOST!!!!!!

This has made a massive improvement in my quality of life... I HATE not being able to listen to my music, and this has resolved completely, as far as I can tell!!

So, to be clear: the issue I had appears to have been caused by some utterly bizarre file structure WHS uses on its drives, and not at all caused by MC. Later today, I'm going to try to put the drive back into the server and make sure all is still good, and if so, I'm going to jam out to all this music I've missed whilst I shop around for new backup drives

Also, given that this was the resolution, what's the general consensus on the drive itself? Does it still need to be replaced?

I know this is unspeakably creepy, but I wanna hug each and every one of you guys right now... I was at the verge of punting a baby over this whole mess!!!!!! THANK YOU GUYS SO INSANELY MUCH!!!!!  

[JimH]

Great news.  Nice work, gvanbrunt.  Thank you.

[Scolex]

Time to crack open a Barley Pop and celebrate with some music.
Glad you got it resolved.
As far as the drive I would take a screen cap of the crystal disk info report and then just keep an eye on it.

[Theogenes]

Time to crack open a Barley Pop and celebrate with some music.
Glad you got it resolved.
As far as the drive I would take a screen cap of the crystal disk info report and then just keep an eye on it.

Done and done!! There's something about an ice-cold Abita Turbodog along with some killer rock 'n roll that just sets my entire world up perfectly 

I'll watch for more issues with the HDs, and if the number of bad sectors starts creeping up, I'll snag another one and transfer everything over. In the meantime, although it doesn't appear that my HDs were corrupt, I think I'm still going to take this as a precautionary note about the importance of backing everything up and start shopping for additional drives. Anybody know where to find some deals on WD Caviar Black 2TBs? 

Cheers to all you guys!!!!!!

[gvanbrunt]

Glad to here that worked. I would agree that just keep an eye on the # of relocated sectors. If that keeps increasing then you might want to replace it.

As for a backup, that would be a good call. What I do for my music is use CrashPlan. For free you can setup an offsite computer to backup to. I just connected an external drive to the remote computer and backup to that. Now I have off site backup for free. A good way is to exchange with a friend and each backup to the others computer. You can "prestage" the drive before moving it remote so only changes and new files get sent. Works great. After that it is set and forget...

[Scolex]

Anybody know where to find some deals on WD Caviar Black 2TBs?

Where are you at the US, CA, UK, etc

[glynor]

Where are you at the US, CA, UK, etc

Yeah... Actually, Newegg has them on sale today.

If you're in the US, and you are a Newegg E-Blast subscriber (and if you're not, you should be), you can use Promo code EMCNDNE23 on the WD Caviar Black 2TB drive and bring it down to $179.99.

PS.  Actually, I just checked, and Amazon has the same price on the drive right now with no promo code.  I don't know if that's a permanent price or a discount though.  Hard drive prices have been falling though lately (finally again), including WDs, so it'll probably come down even further if you wait.

With that drive, though... I wouldn't wait.

[InflatableMouse]

Awesome. Good to hear your stuff is not corrupt.

You still need to RMA that drive though. It's a common issue with that model, I had 2 of those myself. Seagate exchanged both of them without questions. The newer revisions I got back don't have those issues.

This should tell you all you need to know:
http://seagate.com/support/warranty-and-returns/

[Theogenes]

Okay, couple of replies here:

Glad to here that worked. I would agree that just keep an eye on the # of relocated sectors. If that keeps increasing then you might want to replace it.

Got it. I'll hawkeye the sneaky SOBs from now on and see if they start creeping towards the edge!

As for a backup, that would be a good call. What I do for my music is use CrashPlan. For free you can setup an offsite computer to backup to. I just connected an external drive to the remote computer and backup to that. Now I have off site backup for free. A good way is to exchange with a friend and each backup to the others computer. You can "prestage" the drive before moving it remote so only changes and new files get sent. Works great. After that it is set and forget...

Never heard of it, but it sounds like a pretty great idea!! Thanks for the heads-up!!!

Where are you at the US, CA, UK, etc

Yep, this would probably be useful information for ya. I'm outside of Nashville, TN in the ol' US-of-A!

Yeah... Actually, Newegg has them on sale today.

If you're in the US, and you are a Newegg E-Blast subscriber (and if you're not, you should be), you can use Promo code EMCNDNE23 on the WD Caviar Black 2TB drive and bring it down to $179.99.

PS.  Actually, I just checked, and Amazon has the same price on the drive right now with no promo code.  I don't know if that's a permanent price or a discount though.  Hard drive prices have been falling though lately (finally again), including WDs, so it'll probably come down even further if you wait.

With that drive, though... I wouldn't wait.

Hmmm... Prior to your message, I would have thought I was an 'E-Blast subscriber' since I get emails from them fairly frequently, but I just looked and I don't have any messages from them in the last week or so. I'll see about making sure I'm on the primo distro list . And yeah, the cheapest I've found was just under $150 from a skeezy online retailer that I wouldn't trust if my life depended upon it.

I know that I've picked pretty much the worst time ever to go looking for a new hard drive, as storage space is considerably higher now than it was before the tsunami, but hey, it's hard for me to complain too much about my bad luck considering I just got access to all my music again!! ;P

As far as waiting or not: are you saying I shouldn't wait because you think my existing drive is in the process of kicking the bucket in slomo, or because the WD Caviar Black 2TB won't come down further than that? (Man, I hope it will come down further than that... My working plan was to limp along until I go to Jamaica in 10 days, leave my computer off for that entire time, and jump back into the hunt when I get back with the hope that prices have come down a bit more.)

Awesome. Good to hear your stuff is not corrupt.

You still need to RMA that drive though. It's a common issue with that model, I had 2 of those myself. Seagate exchanged both of them without questions. The newer revisions I got back don't have those issues.

This should tell you all you need to know:
http://seagate.com/support/warranty-and-returns/

It sucks, but they aren't going to exchange it. I've now gone to NewEgg, who directed me to Seagate, who directed me to HP, who told me that it's outside the warranty period. It's over a year old, so I get that, but still-- if the drive has a known issue, it has a known issue, and should be fixed IMO. Looks like I'm gonna have to just shell out the cash for a new one. Sure as hell won't be buying a Seagate though if this is their idea of standing behind their products.

With that said, if you (or anyone else) knows of a better way to get these guys to RMA this for me (without having to personally send a letter written in my own blood to the CEO, as I hate it when people do that), I'm definitely open to suggestions!!!