A Reminder to Everyone...

Oh, man, sorry to hear that! I suppose that includes that new song you're working on?

yes, it includes the latest song I've been working on both in Sonar and in Finale.

that looks interesting, herb. $50/year isn't very much, either in the grand scheme of things. I gladly would pay it NOW if I could get my files back!

yeah, if I could just get it to do backups from the drive AFTER it's failed!

OK, I just backed everything up. Can you just remind us about once a week? lol Actually, one of my sons had BOTH his hard drives die at once. That sort of scares me!

ORIGINAL: amateur

Any hope of retrieving any files? My D*** laptop crashed last year, but the computer people were able to get the files off it even though it was beyond the blue screen of death

you might could get files off of it if you hook it up to a USB external case.

mine already was in a usb external case, my failure won't allow it to read the drive at all.

there are data recovery places available, but I think they start at $300. I don't think I can afford that.

Hey Reece....check this out. I know I've posted this info before but I'll bet you forgot about it...so here it is again just for you...

ALL MAY NOT BE LOST.

This advice is based on a desktop...I've not tried this on a laptop. So for all you people on laptops, save a copy of your stuff to an external drive....they are hugh and they are cheap insurance.

OK Reece....try this. Install a new drive and put your OS on it and get the computer booted & running, or buy a new machine. Take the old crashed drive, get the manufacturers user manual for it..usually available on the mfg's website. Reset the dip switches on the crashed drive to make it a SLAVE drive. Make sure the computer is off and install this drive as a slave on the ribbon cable in the second connector. Hook up the power cables and turn the computer on. The first hard drive will contain the OS and the computer should boot normally. Once it is booted, use MY COMPUTER to see if you can see the second (slave) drive. If you can see it there is a real good chance that you will be able to access the data and if you can access it you will be able to copy it off to a new drive.

This can work because usually the crash involves the FAT and the OS. THe file structure is usually undamaged and the data is still there. Since you are not needing to boot from the drive there is a good chance that your data is in the undamaged files and is retrievable. It's worth a try.

I have done this recovery method several times through the years and it has worked every time.

I hope it works for you.

ORIGINAL: Guitarhacker

Hey Reece....check this out. I know I've posted this info before but I'll bet you forgot about it...so here it is again just for you...

ALL MAY NOT BE LOST.

This advice is based on a desktop...I've not tried this on a laptop. So for all you people on laptops, save a copy of your stuff to an external drive....they are hugh and they are cheap insurance.

OK Reece....try this. Install a new drive and put your OS on it and get the computer booted & running, or buy a new machine. Take the old crashed drive, get the manufacturers user manual for it..usually available on the mfg's website. Reset the dip switches on the crashed drive to make it a SLAVE drive. Make sure the computer is off and install this drive as a slave on the ribbon cable in the second connector. Hook up the power cables and turn the computer on. The first hard drive will contain the OS and the computer should boot normally. Once it is booted, use MY COMPUTER to see if you can see the second (slave) drive. If you can see it there is a real good chance that you will be able to access the data and if you can access it you will be able to copy it off to a new drive.

This can work because usually the crash involves the FAT and the OS. THe file structure is usually undamaged and the data is still there. Since you are not needing to boot from the drive there is a good chance that your data is in the undamaged files and is retrievable. It's worth a try.

I have done this recovery method several times through the years and it has worked every time.

I hope it works for you.

Thanks Herb, but it wasn't my C: drive that failed. it was an external USB drive (already just a data drive). I do believe that the data is still there, but I can't access it because it won't read anything from the drive. windows nor dos mode will recognize it's even there.

I've had this happen to me to. Twice! Now you get to have fun recording everything again. Not a problem for me since I only make jam tracks of covers.

I sent for a quote from one of the companies in Dallas. Here's the response:

Our standard rate is $149.00 per hour. If you want to expedite the process the rate will be $269 for the diagnostic and $269 per hour.

All recoveries are different but from what you described in your initial query, your project can take anywhere from 3-14 hours ($447.00-$2086.00).

I'm thinking that I'm just going to have to redo everything that's important.

You might try the fridge trick - cooling makes the drive contract slightly, which sometimes (temporarily) can undo wear damage - no joke or fairy tale, it's good science:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061027115456243

ORIGINAL: gamblerschoice

I think a round of copy to disk of everthing in the "finished" category is in order, maybe even break out the old tape backup systems we used to use.

ouch! - those things were such a pain - so slow! but they worked.

ORIGINAL: Roflcopter

You might try the fridge trick - cooling makes the drive contract slightly, which sometimes (temporarily) can undo wear damage - no joke or fairy tale, it's good science:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061027115456243

Thanks, Rob! It certainly can't hurt to try that!

Beagle,

I was able to do a repair through DOS I believe. My problem was that it was my main drive with windows. It seems like your may be an easier fix if you could only get something to recognise it. You see nothing in Drive Manager? I would try putting it inside as a slave and see what happens. Mine was completely crashed, but I ended up getting everything off it with a couple days of research. The drive was reformatted and is working fine now. Something messed up in the file structure can do that, without any physical drive problems.

Jason

Yeah and if your burner does DVD, you can get larger projects on it with audio wave files galore.

saving as a CWB will save everything except the actual plugins themselves. as long as you reinstall the plugins with the same location and same name, then the CWB will open normally. CWB will save all MIDI and AUDIO data.