URGENT - file recovery

[johndsadams]

Hi,

I'm in the middle of a recording session, and diligently kept a back-up copy of all my files.

My main audio drive stopped working. Opened up my backup and continued working.

I Just discovered that a portion of the copied files are not working! I can see the waveform but whenI play I hear a click, the level meters go to 0 (although silent.. DC?). Some takes are even partially working.

On a copy of the backup, I tried using the MediaRecovery utility but no luck. The resultant recovered file has the same problem as the original.

I'm betting the original crashed HD has the audio on there somewhere but I can't access it. I have a day and half left in the session and have to determine whether I need to re-record the broken takes.

Anyone have any ideas for me to try? This sucks.

Thanks.
-John

[phaseboy]

Sorry to hear this John - that's horrible.

What do you mean by "my main audio drive stopped working" - can you mount it at all, does it not even turn on, does it click but not mount, does it mount but doesn't show any files, etc...?

Mark

[charlienyc]

This doesn't sound like fun at all - sorry. I had something very similar happen recently going from a V9 64-bit Native system to V8 32-bit MassCore and Native machines. The clips on the timeline were completely empty of waveforms and audio that had all worked fine on the V9 rig. I was unable to recover that audio but had it backed up elsewhere. I suspect my problem had to do with waveforms. Although it's unlikely to be the cause in your case, it might be worth a try deleting quick mount files, etc. to try to get the audio to play.
If I were you, I'd first attempt getting the original main drive running again, as Mark suggested. Good luck either way.
Cheers,
-Charlie

[johndsadams]

Thanks for the sympathy, guys. I appreciate it!

I can't mount the original drive at all on windows. I'm wondering if there is some magical software for windows that will allow me to see all the data that's on it and pull off the takes that have been corrupt.

My suspicion is that in the copy to the backup drive something when bad... even though it copied over without complaint. I've been noticing power fluctuations (I do have an AC line balancer in the chain).

I have MacOS program called "data rescue" that allowed me to at least see the drive but in order to deep scan the drive, I'm looking at 21 hours! I hope I didn't screw up by trying to recover the data on MacOS!

Oy ve.

I spoke with the ensemble and they are understanding. So far the plan is to re-record tomorrow. Thank god for contingency time!

-John

[phaseboy]

John what format is the drive in question? NTFS?

Glad you can re-record - whether or not the problem is data or physical you are unlikely to be able to recover it before the end of your sessions.

Mark

[charlienyc]

Glad to hear they're understanding. Maybe you can get some performance takes from them!

[johndsadams]

Yes, its a NTFS drive.

I figure the performances are just going to get better... one of the pieces the ensemble was working through arrangement changes on the fly. My hope is now that that time and energy has been invested, the takes will go down much more efficiently.

It would be nice to recover the lost takes once I'm back in the studio (more choices, I suppose, for a better edit) so if anyone knows of the best software to use for data recovery of this type, I'd appreciate any insight.

-John

[phaseboy]

Would be happy to chat on the phone next week if you'd like John. There are no easy solutions for audio files if the drive index can't be restored.