stxx


However, ypou will likely have some version that is useable that was successfully written prior to the disk issue.   Also, there is some GREAT SW out there that lets you recover a good portion of a blown HD.   I've used it and it totally saved me. It is called "Diskinternals Partition Recovery" and it works!   I also have a kit that allows me to hook up any type of hard disk via USB including notebook style so between those 2 things, if your disk crashes and you don't have a good backup, there is a very good chance you will be able to recover most if not all of your data. using those tools

+1 on this.  In addition, when hard drives fail, there is a good chance that it is a failure in the circuitry, rather than an actual physical media failure, and there are expensive but available service companies out there that can recover data from that kind of failure.


But multiple backups are indeed the best approach to the whole thing, ahead of time.  I truly do feel for the original poster's loss of data, nonetheless.


Bob Bone

But, we always have a good backup...RIGHT!

 
 
Twice!   
 

SONAR X3D Win 7 64bit. This has just happened to me, I am DEVASTATED.
 
The project was playing as I was auditioning a fantastic synth riff - track really coming together. I tried to stop playback but it wouldn't stop - nothing would stop it. Before this I tried saving but it said my disk was full - boll**ks, I have 1.5 TB free.
 
Tried to hit save but nothing. Closed SONAR , opened back up and both my project file and autosave have been truncated to 1kb. Project lost.
 
I have a backup from 2 weeks ago but this is sh*t compared to the last couple of hours work.
 
I'm gradually having no confidence in SONAR, it's destroying my creative energy!

This error message can also happen with Word on the Mac, so I don't think it's solely a Windows issue. I've also had it happen a few times with Windows when saving to a USB drive. For some reason no one has been able to explain to me, sometimes a drive will become 100% read-only for no apparent reason. This makes it impossible to save to, copy, or modify the drive's contents. There is a solution to this - bookmark this article.
 
That said, I agree that all programs, most definitely including Sonar, should never fail to save a file properly unless it's a hardware issue. However in my experience of working with computers since the late 70s, I've had corrupted file saves several times, with several different programs. As a result I do not trust ANY software to save 100% of the time without errors.
 
Remember that backing up is different from archiving. To back up with Sonar (assuming you save all files to a per-project folder), just copy the entire folder to a different drive or even a USB stick whenever you've reached a point where you don't want to lose something. Archiving to DVD or whatever can be done after the session.

hiberna
F*ck me, for not keeping up to date backups.

More like it.
 
Learn, Live and Love to make backups.
 
End of story.

At the end of the day all software fails and so does hardware.
I never do autosave (I believe this causes more problems then it solves), so I've trained myself to hit CTRL + S at the right moments. People have only a few hour left to buy Acronis True Image at sale price. At the end of the day I set off the backup with Acronis and then Acronis shutdowns down my PC for me automatically.

robert_e_bone
 when hard drives fail, there is a good chance that it is a failure in the circuitry, rather than an actual physical media failure, and there are expensive but available service companies out there that can recover data from that kind of failure.

I buy hard drives in pairs. That has saved my butt a couple times when I was able to remove the platter assembly from the non-working drive and connect the electronics from the working drive long enough to back up the data.

Anderton

robert_e_bone
 when hard drives fail, there is a good chance that it is a failure in the circuitry, rather than an actual physical media failure, and there are expensive but available service companies out there that can recover data from that kind of failure.

I buy hard drives in pairs. That has saved my butt a couple times when I was able to remove the platter assembly from the non-working drive and connect the electronics from the working drive long enough to back up the data.

Gearhead!!!!

I have never seen this error, but have seen a "general program error" dialog pop up within X3 when working with larger projects. This does not cause X3 to close (thankfully)... X3 just repeatedly gives the "general program error" and sits there. The solution to that one was increasing I/O buffers (Advanced Mode: Preferences->Audio->Synch and Caching). However, some users may not find this and eventually "just close" X3 out of frustration, thereby losing their work. I have not gone back to test this to see if I had "just closed X3" if it would corrupt the file I was trying to save.
 
I am curious with the "Disk may be full" error, if the user is able to write to other media (i.e. another drive, or even stick a flash drive into the machine and write to that)?

The way I work is that when I'm done for the day, I do 2 saves:
a normal project (i.e. "Save") and a bundle, which is saved to a network drive which has an automated backup. The bundle gets a number that I bump up.
 
For example:
project name: MyProject
bundle: MyProject-1
 
The next day I open the bundle and let sonar create a new folder set and the project gets the bundle name "myProject-1". When I end the day, I save the normal project (now named "MyProject-1") and a bundle named "MyProject-2".
 
The next day I again open the bundle "MyProject-2".
Rinse-lather-repeat.
 
When my project drive starts to get full, I back up all the revisions of the projects I have not touched to DVD disks.
 
Yes, this consumes disk space like crazy, but I'm paranoid and feel better with redundancy. My projects are more valuable than disk space. :)