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MP3 player
May. 18th, 2004 10:55 amI posted briefly about my MP3 player a while back. I've basically destroyed my entire music collection in the process of trying to back it up, and it brings me down quite a bit.
What happened was that the filesystem somehow became corrupted. I tried various ways of fixing it, but Linux always got stuck part way through analysing it and Windows couldn't see any problems (until it actually tried to use it, that is). So I concluded that the only way forward was to take the hard drive out, connect it directly to the computer, and try and fix it that way, or at least copy all the data I could in order to wipe and re-format the drive.
Except that laptop hard drives (as used in my Archos) aren't as idiot-proof as normal ones. It was at this point that I managed to connect the cable one step along from where it was supposed to be, put power across the data pins, and fritz the drive electronics.
The frustrating thing is that all the data is still there on the hard drive platters; it's just the electronics that's gone. I could try and find another drive of the same model and swap over the circuit board, but finding such a drive would be tricky and possibly expensive for a procedure whose success is far from certain. I could send it to a data recovery firm like Vogon, but they say they might charge up to £750, and that's only if my diagnosis is correct.
Most of the data on the drive is rips of my own CDs and so can be replaced relatively easily. But even then, it's a very time-consuming and error-prone process, and the CDs I've already ripped (ie my favourites) are all in storage. However, it's the rest of the data I'm most bothered about. CDs borrowed from friends, stuff picked up from the Net or from other people's MP3 collections, and other things that will be harder to replace. I *think* that all the non-music data on there is stuff I have copies of elsewhere, but I'm not entirely sure, and even that much doubt is depressing since I'll never know, now.
I'm currently wondering if I should cheer myself up by buying an iRiver iHP-140 and re-ripping all my music as OGG files...
What happened was that the filesystem somehow became corrupted. I tried various ways of fixing it, but Linux always got stuck part way through analysing it and Windows couldn't see any problems (until it actually tried to use it, that is). So I concluded that the only way forward was to take the hard drive out, connect it directly to the computer, and try and fix it that way, or at least copy all the data I could in order to wipe and re-format the drive.
Except that laptop hard drives (as used in my Archos) aren't as idiot-proof as normal ones. It was at this point that I managed to connect the cable one step along from where it was supposed to be, put power across the data pins, and fritz the drive electronics.
The frustrating thing is that all the data is still there on the hard drive platters; it's just the electronics that's gone. I could try and find another drive of the same model and swap over the circuit board, but finding such a drive would be tricky and possibly expensive for a procedure whose success is far from certain. I could send it to a data recovery firm like Vogon, but they say they might charge up to £750, and that's only if my diagnosis is correct.
Most of the data on the drive is rips of my own CDs and so can be replaced relatively easily. But even then, it's a very time-consuming and error-prone process, and the CDs I've already ripped (ie my favourites) are all in storage. However, it's the rest of the data I'm most bothered about. CDs borrowed from friends, stuff picked up from the Net or from other people's MP3 collections, and other things that will be harder to replace. I *think* that all the non-music data on there is stuff I have copies of elsewhere, but I'm not entirely sure, and even that much doubt is depressing since I'll never know, now.
I'm currently wondering if I should cheer myself up by buying an iRiver iHP-140 and re-ripping all my music as OGG files...
