Topic: TSKB: Help me recover a show from my CF card

[rodeen]

Last Friday I was out for the Trampled By Turtles CD release party and was using a brand spanking new SanDisk 4GB CF card. 

- I formatted the card in my Tascam HD-P2 and recorded part of one opener, a second opener and TBTs. 
- When I got home I couldn't access the CF card in several different card readers or by hooking the P2 up to the computer via firewire. 
- I was able to see and play on the P2 the second opener and TBT's but the first opener was non existent.
- I finally was able to mount the CF card in a card reader and run a dos chkdsk via a command prompt and that gave me this:

C:\Documents and Settings\rodeen>chkdsk i: /f
The type of the file system is FAT32.
Volume Serial Number is 0804-0025
The \ entry contains a nonvalid link.
Windows is verifying files and folders...
The \4gb_cf entry contains a nonvalid link.
\4gb_cf\Audio Files\file01.wav is cross-linked on allocation unit 8.
Cross link resolved by copying.
File and folder verification is complete.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 24592.  Orphan truncated.
Convert lost chains to files (Y/N)? Y
1835008 bytes in 1 recovered files.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

4,091,052,032 bytes total disk space.
       98,304 bytes in 3 folders.
2,980,085,760 bytes in 6 files.
1,110,835,200 bytes available on disk.

       32,768 bytes in each allocation unit.
      124,849 total allocation units on disk.
       33,900 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Documents and Settings\rodeen>

After the chkdsk there was a directory called FOUND.000 in the root directory of the CF card and it looked like:

I:\FOUND.000>dir
 Volume in drive I has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0804-0025

 Directory of I:\FOUND.000

02/17/2007  01:16 PM    <DIR>          .
02/17/2007  01:16 PM    <DIR>          ..
02/17/2007  01:16 PM         1,835,008 FILE0000.CHK
               1 File(s)      1,835,008 bytes
               2 Dir(s)   1,110,835,200 bytes free

I:\FOUND.000>

I ended up with the three files on the CF but the size of the first file is way off.  It should only be 100MB tops but shows up as:

I:\4gb_cf\Audio Files>dir
 Volume in drive I has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0804-0025

 Directory of I:\4gb_cf\Audio Files

02/16/2007  08:18 PM    <DIR>          .
02/16/2007  08:18 PM    <DIR>          ..
02/16/2007  10:12 PM       803,831,808 file00.wav
02/16/2007  11:11 PM       803,838,976 file01.wav
02/17/2007  12:52 AM     1,370,487,808 file02.wav
               3 File(s)  2,978,158,592 bytes
               2 Dir(s)   1,110,835,200 bytes free

I:\4gb_cf\Audio Files>

The timestamps are pretty much accurate.  Files file01.wav and file02.wav are pretty close to accurate sizes for the 24/48 recordings.

Can anyone help me save these files? 

Any thoughts on the CF card?  It's really hard to mess something up with the P2.  Nothing unusual happened during the show with the exception of running on internal batteries for a while during the second set before I plugged in the external battery again (while it was recording.

+T's to anyone who can help!

Thanks!

[rodeen]

A great comment.  I actually got the second opener off the card that way. But being an idiot did the chkdsk before transferring the Trampled By Turtles set.  Funny thing is the P2 still plays and sees the second file.  Somehow I think the bits are still out there.  I just have to figure out how to get them!

This may seem like a totally clueless comment, so please pardon my cluelessness.  If you can play 2 of the 3 files on the HDP2 then why not just run it real-time on the HDP2 on a SPDIF out into your PC and worry about reformatting the CF card once you know they are off the card? 

[live2496]

It seems like file00.wav is crossed-up somehow with another.

Copy the files to your desktop computer and you can import the data as raw into audio software (like adobe audiotion or samplitude) or use my audiohack utility (if it can find the data chunk). Go to http://live2496.com and click on the section entitled wave file recovery.

If some of the data is duplicate then just edit it out later.

[rodeen]

Thanks for  the pointer to Audiohack.  I'll be keeping that one in my toolkit of audio utilities.  Unfortunately it was not able to find any .wav data in the file.  At this point I'm bagging it.  I reformatted the CF card with Windows and will try it again.  This time with a my good old reliable Microtrack as a backup recorder.  If the card flakes out again it's going back. 

Thanks again for the help!

+T's

[live2496]

Keep this in mind as a general rule. If you have the PCM samples, you can recover it somehow. Likely importing the data as raw into an audio application would have done it.   -gg

[rodeen]

As a followup.  I formated the 4GB SanDisk under Windows and used it last night in my Microtrack as a backup recorder and it worked flawlessly.  About 2.5 hours @24/44.1.  I was kind of hoping it would fail so I could blame the whole thing on the CF card.  I think I'll run two rigs for a while until I'm convinced that the card is okay.  The recording in the HD-P2 turned out well with no issues either.

[dallman]

Last Friday I was out for the Trampled By Turtles CD release party and was using a brand spanking new SanDisk 4GB CF card. 

- I formatted the card in my Tascam HD-P2 and recorded part of one opener, a second opener and TBTs. 
- When I got home I couldn't access the CF card in several different card readers or by hooking the P2 up to the computer via firewire. 
- I was able to see and play on the P2 the second opener and TBT's but the first opener was non existent.

Talk about strange karma...  Maybe being out with you (Rodeen) was the problem.

Last night I recorded The Tranfusers much like you using my Tascam HD-P2. In my case the CF card was a Trancend 4GB, which I have used many times with my Tascam HD-P2. I came home with three files from 3 sets. The first file transferred flawlessly, but for the next 2 files I get a message saying they are corrupt. I tried a few simple things and then went for this thread which I recalled as we talked about your problem.

Sure enough, the files play fine on the Tascam HD-P2. So I decided to play it safe and pulled out my MT, hooked it up via S/PDIF, and as I type, it is transferring without issue.

No loss, but what the heck is the problem. I will be open to ideas suggestions etc after the transfer, but assume that reformatting will solve. The bigger question is will this be a (rare based on past recording history) occurrence, or is there a way to avoid the problem???

[rodeen]

Throw that thing in the river!   

You did the right thing transferring it off via SPDIF right away.  I think I could have salvaged my show if I would have done that too.

FWIW I have had no problems with the same CF card ever since and used in both the MT and the P2.  I actually used the card in question with the P2 last night and it worked well.  And I ran it 3.5 hours at 24/48 too.  Out of superstition I've been formating my cards in a card reader under Windows XP ever since.  Although the P2 wants to reformat it anyways when I insert it.  But no problems.   

+T for the SPDIF transfer and saving the show. 

[dallman]

Throw that thing in the river!   

You did the right thing transferring it off via SPDIF right away.  I think I could have salvaged my show if I would have done that too.

FWIW I have had no problems with the same CF card ever since and used in both the MT and the P2.  I actually used the card in question with the P2 last night and it worked well.  And I ran it 3.5 hours at 24/48 too.  Out of superstition I've been formating my cards in a card reader under Windows XP ever since.  Although the P2 wants to reformat it anyways when I insert it.  But no problems.   

+T for the SPDIF transfer and saving the show. 

THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED !

I did the above, moved the two files via S/PDIF to the MT, but....when I was done I did a "Scan Media" off the media menu on the Tascam HD-P2. The scan worked and showed nothing abnormal.
Then I thought, what the heck, and tried once again to transfer the files from the Tascam to my computer, and they transferred fine, no problem at all. Somehow probably the scan, but maybe playing the file through, maybe the combination of both, caused whatever glitch there was in those files to correct themselves!!