I'm using Sonar 7 with Windows XP and none of my projects will play anymore. When I open a project and click play it plays for about one second and then it stops and says dropout. I ran check disc and it says there are no bad sectors. I cloned the hard drive and the cloned drive does exactly the same thing. When do I "control alt delete" it shows two Sonar 7s are running for some reason. Could my Sonar be corrupted? Should I uninstall Sonar and reinstall it? I have about five years worth of projects on this drive.

Welcome to the forum!
It would be nice to have your PC specs with a question like this.
Do you have several HDDs - samples, audio, OS? What type (speed, green..?) of HDDs and how full were they when the problem started? Were they defragged regularily? Are other programs working fine? Could a memory comb have gone bad or something?
 
You are sure nothing was done to the system when the problem started - new software, drivers...?
 
What kind of an interface are you using and with what drivers?
 
If you really see two instances of SONAR running simultaneously, it's propably due to too much clicking when launching, if so, try launching SONAR by right clicking the icon and selecting open/run.  I don't think you can install the same program twice.
 
 

The crucial clue, I think, is seeing two instances of SONARPDR.EXE on the Task List.
 
Are you opening the projects by double-clicking on an icon in Windows Explorer? Or are you opening SONAR first, then loading the project? If the former, try the latter. Or, instead of double-clicking, right-click on the project file's icon and select "Open".
 
This may be irrelevant, but go to the global options and check the "allow only one open project at a time" option.
 

Thanks for the replies.
 
I only have one hard drive in the computer.
It is a 300 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM with 93 GB of data on it.
I'm running Windows XP service pack 2 and the processor is a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz.
I defragged it some over the last 4 1/2 years but was told years ago that you shouldn't defrag too much when you have valuable data on a hard drive. Don't know if that was good advice or not.
Other programs seem to be working fine. My projects use a lot of samples with MIDI sequencing. (VSTis)
The only audio tracks are guitar parts.
 
The problems really started after I drove 2000 miles with my computer in the trunk of my car.
I had been having some dropout problems before then but I assumed it was because I had too many tracks in my projects. The hard drive makes a little more noise than it used to but when I ran check disk it says there are no bad sectors. I can start a new project and everything seems to play all right so it's only my older projects that aren't playing. I cloned the hard drive to an SSD and still have the same problem so I doubt it's a mechanical issue.
 
I'm using an e-mu 1212M soundcard with whatever the latest drivers were about four and a half years ago.
 
I tried opening Sonar first and loading projects. I tried double clicking the projects and right clicking and selecting open, all with the same results.
 
It takes a long time for the projects to load. Sometimes they don't load at all so I do "control alt delete".
That's when I see two instances of Sonar in the task list that say Sonar 7 Producer Edition Not Responding. I don't' see SONARPDR.EXE on the task list. If the project loads all the way then there is only one instance in the task bar and it says Sonar 7 Producer Edition Running.
 
My question is do y'all think it would be a good idea to uninstall Sonar and reinstall it? I don't want to risk harming my project data.
 

So you have no backups of the projects from 4 years to revert to???!! You just might start sweating right away.

You are living in danger by not following the golden rule of computers,,,, Back up everything, back it it up twice. You should have more than one hard drive in a tower. Hard drives are cheap. 
I would pull that drive, install a nice new drive and put the old drive in as a data drive where you'll be able to retrieve your CWP files safely. That drive is obviously on it's way out. 5 years is max time I would trust one myself. 

I have multiple backups of all my projects.
I have them stored on DVDs.
I have them on another hard drive stored at an alternate safe location.
And as of this week I have them stored on a cloned hard drive.
 
But none of that matters if my projects won't play.
 
Again my original question is "Do y'all think it would be a good idea to uninstall Sonar and reinstall it?"
My thinking is that since I have no bad sectors on the drive and the cloned drive is having the exact same problem and other programs still work, then some how Sonar has become corrupted. My concern is if I uninstall Sonar and reinstall it, will I be able to open my projects as they are now? Will all the plugins be recognized by the new install and automatically be loaded when I open the projects? Will all my audio tracks still be recognized and assigned to the right projects or when I uninstall Sonar will everything become disassociated and I have to search for and reassign all my plugins and tracks? If that is the case then I think I might as well just rebuild my system from scratch.
 
Which leads me to my second question.
 
If I'm going to rebuild my system, then I think I might want to upgrade to Sonar X2.
If I upgrade to X2 will all my Sonar 7 projects load and play. What about plugins? Most of my plugins are older 32 bit versions and not supported anymore. What if I build a 64 bit system, will the old projects still load and play with all the 32 bit plugins?
 
 

OK. It's quite important info that backup versions saved prior to the problem won't play either. You did not mention it.
 
The project file includes all the info concerning the locations of projects material. If you don't change the file paths, SONAR should find everything after the re-install. If the file paths are changed, you need to change the settings in Options respectively.
 
Your description of the start of the problem - the long transport - makes me think it might be a mechanical issue anyway. I wonder if it's possible that a mechanical issue could simply prevent the read head from accessing some parts?? I've understood  "bad sector" listing covers only the surface of the disc,  not the mechanical part, but I may be wrong.
 
New noises in the HDD would really worry me. I lost a HDD once due to bearing failure.
 
 
 

That's a pretty old computer so there could be a dozen things going on besides the hard drive.
I would just put that one aside and upgrade to something newer. 
You can run Sonar 7 32 bit on a W7 computer, seems lots of folks do. No need to upgrade to X2 if your happy with 7. But at some point in time soon you should get those old projects finished and move on. It's like having stuff recorded on a 8 track cassette which will eventually die.  
 
If your stuck with that computer I would still use a newer C drive and re-install Windows and all your software. For me that was always faster than screwing around with a zillion other fixes. 
My guess is your projects will load up fine after a clean re install unless there are other issues with the MoBo  or RAm etc. Open it up, blow the dust out, re seat the RAM, check all your connections. But a redo of the OS is the fastest way to re set to a clean machine. 

Alright I'm back, I built a new computer with Windows 7 64 bit and loaded Sonar 7 32 bit on it.
 
Now I can load my projects from the old hard drive into Sonar on the new hard drive and they will play (the now time bar moves) but none of the plug-ins are being loaded into the project. No effects or VST instruments.
 
My projects are mostly virtual instrument based so when I play them all I hear are the guitar tracks with no effects and no keyboards or drums. I see all the MIDI data and wave forms and the now time bar moves across the screen but the bulk of my music is missing.
 
How do I get the plugins to load?