Music gone

[chris123]

Hi,

A very odd thing happened today.
ALL my music and podcasts etc have gone, the whole of the My Music folder.

I use iTunes on XP.

I ran a virus check and a folder was scanned called D:\found.002\dir0000.chk\(the name of the music folder was here eg. 'music', 'podcasts', 'video'). However when i look for this folder it doesn't exist on that path.

This is really odd.

How do i get my music back?

Cheers.

[BuddyAdams]

Go to the dealer to repair it, because no one can help you by using this.

[0iD]

Have you tried recovering it from system restore? Otherwise try an undelete program, but if there was a lot in there I don't hold out much hope of getting it all back.
Personally my docs, photo's & music are backed up weekly to an external drive, for the same reason.

[WhiteGiant]

Have you tried a search for *.file-extension(whatever Itunes uses)? Might have been moved around.

[watercooled]

Check your HDDs SMART data. There is a possibility that your drive is faulty in which case it may fail soon. Try using http://www.hdtune.com/ and post SMART data here if you are unsure if it's ok. I doubt a HDD failure would cause you to lose all the files in one directory but it's best to be safe, right? It does sound like something software based. Also remember to back up in future!

[peterb]

Depending on the 'value' of the data - you could try some of the recovery programs available (www.runtime.org is one example - there are others) but clone the disk first so if you make a mistake, you won't make a bad situation worse, or consider a data recovery company - expect to pay around £300 upwards, but most work on a no recovery, no fee basis.

When/if you get it back, consider a backup regime.

[chris123]

cheers for all the answers guys.

OiD - i have tried system restore, it didn't work unfortunately. Going to have to try an undelete programme. Can you recomend any?

WhiteGiant - I've tried that...no luck.

Watercooled - I have downloaded the programme. Just about to run it. Can i post the SMART date with the free version? Are you able to tell me if it is knackered?

peterb - to be honest most of the stuff is on my iPod so i'll copy it from there. I will loose podcasts and a few videos, but nothing too major. Not really wanting to spend too much money. Cheers for the advice though.

[GoNz0]

hit start and run, type chkdsk d: /r

if it asks to unmount the volume let it, when its done reboot and see if he files are back

[chris123]

Thank you for all the replies.

Unfortunately i think it is lost.
I am going to copy the music off my iPod back on to my computer. The only problem is the 'lost' music is still taking up space on my hard drive.

How do i get rid of it?

[GoNz0]

delete the folder, empty the bin and defrag the drive

[watercooled]

You could try booting from a Linux/GNU Live CD (Try TinyCore, only about 10MB http://tinycorelinux.com/ ) and using the file browser to check for your files as it will see more that explorer, such as the System Restore and Recycle Bin folders. It's probably not a good sign if the drive is doing this so be sure to run chkdsk with the /r flag and check the results. Be aware however that this can take a very long time so let it run overnight at least. If chkdsk reports drive errors, I'd recommend replacing the drive. Also, is D: an external HDD, as a knock during operation could have caused this.

[GoNz0]

If chkdsk reports drive errors, I'd recommend replacing the drive.

er no, if chkdsk cant fix it you need to go the the hard drive makers support site and run there diagnostics, it could be the result of a crash and nothing more.

[Lee H]

I've had the same happen and lost a load of data 4 years ago.

Since then I've made sure the My Documents points to another seperate HDD which is used for media (music... tons of it) and since then I've had windows fall over and things like that but they've been safe on the D:\ drive

[watercooled]

er no, if chkdsk cant fix it you need to go the the hard drive makers support site and run there diagnostics, it could be the result of a crash and nothing more.

Yeah but use common sense, obviously. I was referring to surface errors, etc. Besides, the mfr's diagnostic tools generally do little more than read and display SMART data. If the OP is unsure, post chkdsk results for advice. Also, what AV are you using? There is a possibility a rootkit could cause this so run a deep rootkit scan if possible. I was a little too quick to mention a replacement, but post what you can so we can find out what's wrong.

[GoNz0]

i was using common sense, common sense does not mean buying a new hard drive every time there is a problem with it. a surface error in most cases will be flagged and a spare sector remapped

[watercooled]

Yeah sorry mate I did suggest replacing too quickly. What I meant by common sense is don't buy a new drive for common errors.