MP3 files damaged after recovered from drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter ITM
  • Start date Start date
I

ITM

I've used Ontrack Easy Recovery Professional to recover data from 3
drives which were showing as "Dynamic Disk Unreadable" in Disk Manager
(these disks had been transplanted from a Windows 2000 server which
had died).

The data is mostly MP3 files. The files look OK at first glance -
correct filenames, folder structures OK, correct sizes, but I can't
play them using either Winamp or Media Player. Media player says "The
file you are attempting to play has an extension that does not match
the file format" (the extension is .mp3). Winamp will open the file
but when I click play it doesn't advance. I also notice that all of
the ID3 tag information is missing.

Do these symptoms sound familiar to anybody? If so, could you
recommend a way of recovering the files?

TIA for any help
Ian
 
Were the files marked as fully recoverable? If they weren't you just took a
chance and lost.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
None of the files were marked as being fully recoverable or otherwise.
There was just a list of files found.
 
That explains it then. The files you recovered were not in usable condition.
If there isn't a G in the condition column the files are no good.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
That explains it then. The files you recovered were not in usable condition.
If there isn't a G in the condition column the files are no good.
Click to expand...

There wasn't a "condition column". Are we talking about the same
utility here? I was using the "Advanced Recovery" option of Ontrack
Easy Recovery Pro.
 
That is what I use all the time in my work. In advanced recovery after you
perform a search the program builds a directory tree of found files and
folders. If you expand a folder you will see the files with listed in the
right hand view pane. The last column to the right is the condition of the
found files.

It will be listed as one of the following:

Value Possible File Condition

G = The file appears to be intact and in Good condition

D = The file appears to be Deleted

X = The file appears to be cross-linked and allocated in the same location
on the partition as another file or directory

B = Bad file date - The file date is after today or has invalid values
(e.g., 35-50-2000)

A = Bad file Attribute - The attribute is undefined or invalid

N = Bad file Name - The file name has invalid characters

S = Bad file Size - The file is larger than the partition

(c) 2002 - 2003 Ontrack Data Recovery, Inc.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
That explains it then. The files you recovered were not in usable condition.
If there isn't a G in the condition column the files are no good.
Click to expand...

My mistake - I've just re-run the test and there IS a condition
column. There's a G for every file that I've checked so far (including
those that were corrupt when I recovered them last time).
 
ITM said:
I've used Ontrack Easy Recovery Professional to recover data from 3
drives which were showing as "Dynamic Disk Unreadable" in Disk Manager
(these disks had been transplanted from a Windows 2000 server which
had died).

The data is mostly MP3 files. The files look OK at first glance -
correct filenames, folder structures OK, correct sizes, but I can't
play them using either Winamp or Media Player. Media player says "The
file you are attempting to play has an extension that does not match
the file format" (the extension is .mp3). Winamp will open the file
but when I click play it doesn't advance. I also notice that all of
the ID3 tag information is missing.

Do these symptoms sound familiar to anybody? If so, could you
recommend a way of recovering the files?

TIA for any help
Ian
Click to expand...

I don't know if this applies to you but since you have or did have mp3 files
on your computer it might be of interest.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5681561.html
 
I'd expect this out of WMAs, but mp3s....

Try playing them on another computer. If that doesn't work, I'd get
out the ol' CD case and open up iTunes and start ripping...
 
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