[Solved] Ran out of disk space while recording - how to rescue files?

Hi Everybody,
 
I have an oddball question today, the real solution to which is 'don't be an idiot and run out of hard disk space', but that ship has sailed & now I need advice on rescuing what I can from this session...

My session went quite long today & I ran out of disk space while recording the last cut.  I got the 'Unable to save entire recording, the audio disk may be full' error that we all know & love, but that is the same error message as with hard drive dropouts when the disk I/O isn't configured well, and other similar 'dropout' type issues when the disk isn't actually full, so all my searches for help on the matter come up with that issue/solution, rather than the actual problem I'm having, which is the disk is really full and now the files are corrupted when saving them.
 
After I got the message the track previews for these clips in Sonar disappeared, as if that whole take never happened, but the disk remained full.  I tried to drag/drop the files out of the Sonar Browser window onto another drive, but this just crashed Sonar.  The audio drive only has 640K available now, and all the files that were 'in progress' when Sonar used the last available bit are still on the drive, but they won't play, open, or import back into Sonar.  They're somehow corrupted.  Windows sees that those files are there, and they're showing the .wav file extension, but they won't play and Windows can't read the metadata on them (bitrate, length, etc.).  It's as though the .wav file container got opened, the raw data got put in until the disk became full, but the files never got 'closed' properly when saving as there wasn't enough disc space to close out the files.  So, now I have data from the session I'd like to recover, but no way to read those 'corrupted' files.

Does anyone know if the raw data in these files can be rescued?  I mean, Sonar filled up the bits on the drive in their own little filenamed 'containers', it seems like there's got to be a way to read the files into a program & re-save them as .wav (essentially, closing the .wav file container properly around the raw data I already have).  Right?!?
 
Help me Sonar Forums, you're my only hope....
 
A million thanks if you can rescue this session.
 
kn

It's important to remember, that a HDD needs about 10% of its capasity free, preferably a little more, in order to work reliably. Even if you have several gigabytes free, it may be the HDD can't operate anymore.

I wouldn't be concerned about the lack of a visible waveform. That image is generated after the track has been recorded and can be regenerated at any time. Lack of disk space no doubt caused the waveform image to be aborted, but the audio may still be there.
 
The nice thing about wave files is that you can salvage them as long as the header isn't corrupt. I'd try the previous poster's suggestion and see if those files can be played back via WMP, VLC or Foobar2000. The latter can repair MP3s but I don't know about wave files. An editor such as Sound Forge or Adobe Audition might be able to do it.
 
I'd start by freeing up some disk space, obviously. Even if it means temporarily moving some projects to another drive. Then identify the names of the last clips you created. I'd open a command prompt and list them by date/time (type "DIR /od"). Then I'd test the most recent ones to see if they can be played back individually. You might luck out and they're all intact. Worst-case scenario is that one of them needs to be truncated.

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys.
 
More info - the files are mono 96/24, around 700MB each (and also copied to another drive that way, which I'm not sure would happen if the files were headers only & no actual data).  I had been hitting save periodically throughout the session while the tracks continued to record, so perhaps those interim save operations actually dumped data in the files instead of just writing headers.  The session was a 1.5hr long show with no interruptions so I couldn't stop them midway to hit save, thus the overrun.
 
I've tried Sound Forge but it's a pretty old version.  I'll try VLC, wavosaur, etc and report back my findings - I don't have any of those loaded on my DAW so i've got to try on another machine.
 
Thanks again, I'll repost tonight with some results.
 
Cheers,
 
Kris

Good to see a user with only three posts calling for help, getting it, and actually returning to say thanks.
 
PS: Glad you're back in business!

Really glad you got things sorted out. If people in this forum were rewarded with a beer every time a problem was solved, there would be drowning issues.
 
I recommend plugging a 32GB USB drive in a spare port and saving to it periodically. That way even if your data drive dies, you'll have the stuff on the stick. 
 
Basically my protocol is...
 
1 Save to data drive and save to USB stick during session
2 At end of session, copy USB drive data to backup data drive
3 Next day, erase USB stick.
4 Go to step 1.