____twoism

So my hard drive totally crashed.



All i have left of my music:
handwritten notes and arrangements, my guitars. No software.... sigh. I realize it's not earthshattering but it does suck haha.

where do I go from here? I suppose its a good lesson for those too reliant on software/computers. I just wish I could afford decent hardware.

If I were you, I'd purchase a cassette recorder. I do all my music on cassette tape; it's really easy to achieve that Ghost Box/BoC tape sound using an old cassette, but if you don't want your recordings to sound like that, you can use high-bias tape.

I only use computers for transferring to a digital format so I can share my music with people who don't have cassette decks. Therefore, if my hard drive crashed - I'd lose a lot of stuff, but no original compositions. Hardcopy FTW

p.s. let me know if you have any questions about the tape route. I've been doing this for a while, so I'd be happy to provide whatever assistance/advice I can.

JosephG wrote:So my hard drive totally crashed.



All i have left of my music:
handwritten notes and arrangements, my guitars. No software.... sigh. I realize it's not earthshattering but it does suck haha.

where do I go from here? I suppose its a good lesson for those too reliant on software/computers. I just wish I could afford decent hardware.

Gutted

Did you fix the hard drive but still missing the files? I use this for recovering files, it has worked a treat in the past http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download

Really sorry to hear that, it's always been a huge fear of mine.

I recommend from this point on using an online backup program like Dropbox for the essential files. I've used the free version for a few years now without ever reaching the size cap... that being said I'm a writer, so backing up tens or hundreds of text documents is nowhere near as big as backing up MP3s/WAVs... it might work well for project files, midi files, etc. though.

^ I've just set up an account with a service called Copy for online back-up - 15GB free, plus an additional 2GB if you tweet their link on sign-up. Handy as I'm approaching my limit on my free DropBox account.

But, back on topic - sorry to hear that. Might be worth taking your HD into a repair shop to see what, if anything, can be saved.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, foks! I think at this point I am leaning towards hard copies. I think it will be easier and more reliable in the long run... at least that way I'll know if anything happens to my music, its been by me/wife/child heh. Man. I am always so impressed and gladdened by the amount of care and feedback you twoismers give.

I lost probably a couple hundred bucks of software at least so I am very wary of computers now. If I do start working with my piece of shit computer again, I will be creating monthly backups, store backups online, backup with .zip, .rar., .aac, .mp3, and even buy a damned tape drive. lol.

Thanks guys. You've cheered me up considerably. I lost probably... 60 songs? sigh.

I feel your pain man, this happened to me in January, I lost almost everything I didnt own on physical. It was so incredibly annoying to lose some things I will never get back, rare jazz, radio rips, flacs which are impossible to track down, so annoying. Any advice I have has already been stated, just wanted to you to know I feel this pain!

thanks again, folks.. I really appreciate the time you guys took to sympathize and advise !! Its a rare thing nowadays, compassion. Unfortunately I must abed as I am a painter and must awake at 5 am ugh. Thanks bunches!!!!!

I empathise - I've been there, four times.

One mass data loss through error (recovered, but a minority are corrupted files, and all without filenames intact) one dead drive (lost all), one drive that got fully formatted when my computer was out of my hands (different files, again lost all), and recently one system crash where a file for boot somehow corrupted and therefore lost all system-reliant installs, but thankfully did not lose my other files this time, mercifully...

In every case, it's been an absolute pain the rear, and really quite stressful, oh yes - I've had to gradually get everything back to 'how it was'... The start-over is a good opportunity to try and do certain things better than the previous time.

I have some backups of older drives - ones that would now be on their last legs - on external drives, as well as having transferred them onto a larger internal, currently running. I dare say I'm taking a risk with no recent system backup yet as it's been about 3 months, but that's because I'm still trying to restore certain bits, even now - I want to wait until I've actually got my setup how it is *supposed* to be before the first main (and hopefully entire) backup of settings and files - given it usually takes overnight, and well into the next day to complete!

I've gone through this too. Lost so many pictures and music I'd recorded on instruments I no longer have access to. I keep hard copies now. All my stuff is on cassette and I'm going to eventually get it online in case something happens to my tapes. I also lost some recordings in a house fire a few years ago it wasn't my house, it was a friends. He lost everything, it was so sad. All his beautiful instruments and art too.

You make backups next time, that's what I do.

JosephG - look at it positively; this is year zero for your tunes now ;)

But yeah, back up!

Also dude, consider using some fault tolerance for example you could use two hard drives and create a mirrored RAID (one hard drive dies, you lose nothing as the other one has an exact copy, files OS and everything).

Also personally I hate apple macs but one thing they have in their favour is the 'time machine functionality'. You would probably never lose data ever again. Just a thought.