Shirt Pocket Discussions

Shirt Pocket Discussions (https://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/index.php)
-   General (https://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=6)
-   -   backup->restore destroyed all my MP3 and Mov files?? (https://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4888)

wmldwilly 12-31-2008 06:21 PM

backup->restore destroyed all my MP3 and Mov files??
 
1 Attachment(s)
Hello all,

I just used SuperDuper (latest version) to backup an external firewire drive to another drive, then restored back after reformatting. All seems to have gone well with the process, except for an approximately 18gb iTunes library and an assortment of .mov files ALL, yes...ALL, will no longer play either in the finder, in iTunes, or in Quicktime Player. Here's the details:

on a 4-core mac pro running OSX 10.5.6:

backed up an external drive containing my "media server" files (a large iTunes library and various and sundry medium to large .mov files). This drive was formatted with 'Apple Partition Map'.

let SuperDuper create a sparseimage backing up all files.

The target disk for this sparseimage is an external firewire drive formatted Fat32 (or whatever it's called) and regularly shared between this mac and a WindowsXP machine. The drive already contains a large library of Video Effects quicktimes and mpeg2s that play in all applications both on the mac and the pc.

The original external drive was reformatted and changed to "GUID partition map" so it can be a future startup disk for an intel mac.

Finally, used SuperDuper to restore that image to the newly formatted drive.

Everything seems to have transferred flawlessly. HOWEVER, now EVERY SINGLE file in that iTunes library does the following:

* is listed as an "MP3 Audio Fle" in the finder.
* previews in the finder (by hitting the spacebar) but with no playback bar.
* causes iTunes to launch with a double click, but iTunes does nothing with the file - doesn't import it, play it, anything.
* is properly listed in the original iTunes library with all tags and whatnot, shows up in playlists and smart playlists, but will not play or produce any error or indication of a problem whatsoever. hit play, the button grays then ungrays and never plays.
* when opened with Quicktime Player (latest quicktime pro installed and licensed), produces the "this file is not a movie file" error and does not play.
* can have it's file type and creator stripped by FileUtilsCM 1.7.3 producing no change or repair of it's behavior.

So, who has an idea about what gives here? Has SuperDuper munched each and every MP3 and MOV file from this backup and restore cycle?

My biggest curiosity is does the drive hosting the sparseimage being formatted fat32 give us the root of the problem? I sure hope not.

all help is appreciated - i'm running out of ideas of how to save a huge music library that appears to be there but won't play. :confused:

WM

dnanian 12-31-2008 07:43 PM

FAT32? Oh no! I very explicitly warn against copying to a FAT32 drive in the User's Guide if you have over 4GB of data, since it'll limit the image's growth to 4GB, total, and doing so can fail catastrophically. My guess is that the image itself corrupted because it couldn't grow, but not all the APIs produced failures. You don't happen to have the log from this copy, do you?

wmldwilly 01-06-2009 02:05 AM

Somehow I figured it would be something like that. Of all the various hard disks easily available to me when this was going down, the only one with enough free space was formatted for win/mac dual use. Figures that the one with enough space is the one that would screw up any significant amount of stuff beyond a smaller space limit.

I'll dig up the log for you when I get a minute nearer the weekend.

Suggestion for future versions (and for people like me who "know how things work" and don't read manuals):

Modal Dialog:
"Your destination is formatted Fat32 and your source appears to exceed 4gb for your copy. For technical reasons this is not recommended. Are you sure you want to proceed with the copy?" <proceed> <go back>

Alternate Modal Dialog:
"Your destination is formatted Fat32 and you have specified a sparse image for your copy. If you plan on growing this image thru future copies beyond 4gb total, this is not recommended. Are you sure you want to proceed with this copy?" <proceed> <go back>

Just a thought. Now, on to starting the process of ripping and playlisting eleventy-jillion CDs *again*. Anybody know of a good script to automatically make playlists with artist/album titles upon import? :D

WM

dnanian 01-06-2009 08:25 AM

Thanks for the suggestions... FAT32 is a frustrating file system, and it's too bad that it, and not NTFS, is the "common" one between windows and Mac.

delorean 01-22-2009 07:40 PM

something similar happened to me: all files created after a certain date cant be used anymore (mp3s are still in the library but wont play). most of them are music files but there's also pictures and other files, they're all useless. my backup drive is formatted as mac os extended and the source drive is way over 4gb (it's around 270gb). any ideas what might have caused this and if there's a way in repairing the troubled files (or even finding them) please let me know.

dnanian 01-22-2009 08:43 PM

Never heard of anything like that, 'delorean', no. Your source drives are like that? Your backup?

delorean 01-23-2009 11:30 AM

both source and backup drives are formatted mac os extended.

dnanian 01-23-2009 11:40 AM

I understand, but what I'm asking is if the source and destination files are both damaged in this weird way.

delorean 01-23-2009 04:00 PM

unfortunately i dont have the source drive anymore. i noticed after recovery to a new drive when a song in itunes didn't play anymore which definitely played from the old drive.

dnanian 01-23-2009 04:05 PM

I have no idea why that would happen, delorean, unless the drive was somehow damaged.


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:20 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.