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Author Topic: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility  (Read 104151 times)

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Offline live2496

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #120 on: November 05, 2011, 08:02:25 PM »
If it sounds like white noise the bytes are not aligned correctly into frames. 24-bit stereo audio has 6 bytes per frame. (2 channels in each frame times 3 bytes each). If the alignment is incorrect then you can hear total white noise, or white noise and some very low level audio.

The solution to this is to import as a raw file into a DAW, but you need something that will start reading the data at a certain offset instead of at the first byte. (ie. of the data chunk)

I use Samplitude for this but some have done this repair with Audacity and also I believe that Adobe Audition can do this.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2011, 08:44:40 PM by live2496 »
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Offline EarlyMorningRain

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #121 on: November 05, 2011, 08:25:12 PM »
try opening that file in CDWAV, then without altering the file any, do a "File / Save As" , thus saving a new file, then take a look at that new file in your usual editing software.

Offline gmm6797

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #122 on: November 06, 2011, 10:12:07 AM »
What I might try:
* lock the card, so no writing can occur
* install recouva (free from filehippo.com) and restore any/all files to the local hard drive
* run a "CHKDSK /v" from a DOS prompt and see what it sees... if it does see files, you may have to take a chance and do a "chkdsk /f/v" and let it fix the files......  NOTE: this will write to the SD and could not work and/or write over other files.

its kind of a crap shoot, and when this happens to me, I try everything possible and then go with my instinct in the end

kirk97132

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #123 on: November 06, 2011, 11:12:29 AM »
try opening that file in CDWAV, then without altering the file any, do a "File / Save As" , thus saving a new file, then take a look at that new file in your usual editing software.

OK no luck with this method

Offline GroundHog420

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #124 on: November 06, 2011, 12:59:35 PM »
This is very similar to the situation I ran into with the file that we fixed with Visual Studio, which is why I was suggesting the hex reader as a possible solution. I had a file that was about three minutes of soundcheck before I paused my unit, then about an hour of a live set. Something glitched, and the first three minutes played back fine, then the set was all white noise. After we ran the file through Visual Studio and plucked out a couple of zero-sets, the first result was to turn the first three minutes into white noise, and the last hour became music again. It was a pretty easy process to put everything together properly at that point.

On a Mac, you can look at the data in a file by right-clicking on the file, and then choosing the "Open With" option, and using a clean text editor, like BBE Edit or Text Wrangler, for example - basically, the idea is to open the audio file as though it were text instead of audio. I'm afraid the only hex reader I know for the PC platform is Visual Studio, but there may be others. As soon as the file opens, then it will become pretty clear what I'm talking about. I know that there are some files which you can't see yet, but I was thinking that if you could open one of the files that you CAN see - from within the program itself - that you could then try directing the program to the directory where all the files are supposed to be, and at least see if the other files are visible. If they are, and they're not grayed out, you could have a chance at opening them, and tweaking a couple of zero-sets as we did.

If it sounds like white noise the bytes are not aligned correctly into frames. 24-bit stereo audio has 6 bytes per frame. (2 channels in each frame times 3 bytes each). If the alignment is incorrect then you can hear total white noise, or white noise and some very low level audio.

The solution to this is to import as a raw file into a DAW, but you need something that will start reading the data at a certain offset instead of at the first byte. (ie. of the data chunk)

I use Samplitude for this but some have done this repair with Audacity and also I believe that Adobe Audition can do this.
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kirk97132

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #125 on: November 06, 2011, 01:18:08 PM »
Cool really appreciate you trying to lend a helping hand.   I have figured that maybe this is a project to tackle when I'm not doing other stuff and can dedicate my attention to it. 

Obviously there is something on the card.  I'm also hitting Tascam tech for help and asking why a firmware can't be done so it saves like an HD-P2 does constantly.  This is the second card I now have with the same problem.  A friend borrowed the deck and battery died with a whole show on it.  SO I ave two cards to retrieve.  I've done ok with the 0 byte stuff but this problem of no file info at all has me stumped.

I did run a chkdsk /f on it and it did not solve any problems.   I have not tried the above program mentioned yet.  I would still love to hear from someone who can walk me through the step by step process.  I think Groundhog and I have a PC/Mac disconnect.  PL\lus it sounds like he is more knowledgeable about code than I am.  Removing stuff and replacing it, make me nervous.  nad while I understand how hex looks I don't know how it works.  But I guess there is no time like the present to learn something new

Offline gmm6797

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #126 on: November 07, 2011, 11:31:59 AM »
You could try to use Norton Ghost, which will make a bit-by-bit copy to another card, and then play around on it... and if that fails, just re-ghost it back and try again.... its tough with out putting my hands on it to know what I would do with it

kirk97132

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #127 on: November 08, 2011, 11:40:15 AM »
OK thanks for the input.  Not sure what I'll be doing at this point.  I guess just set the cards aside till I can figure it out

Offline live2496

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #128 on: November 08, 2011, 11:59:45 AM »
I thought we were getting close on this as you said one of the files was just hiss. And you had used photorec to get some data off of the card?

I have BadCopyPro and it can sometimes get data off of cards that is otherwise unretrievable. But I think photorec does a similar type of scan. Since you don't want to spend any money on this I could offer to run that on the media here if you want to send them.

Gordon
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kirk97132

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #129 on: November 08, 2011, 12:53:09 PM »
well I did get hiss but the file length showed up as less then 10 sec.  Should be about an hour.  AND even the good file it "recovered" was only hiss?    I guess I could send the cards that is sure easy enough.  I've got other cards to use.  I've never run into the no file shown problem before.  Files with 0 bytes yes. So gimmie an addy Kirk

Offline EarlyMorningRain

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #130 on: November 27, 2011, 06:31:10 PM »
ok, I'm next I guess as my battery ran out during the show last night.

The recorder (R4) has a file there (2 of them actually as I was running a matrix), but says it has zero bytes in size.

Tried all of the utilities/ideas mentioned here and the most progress is I can get a file that now appears to be of the correct size (45min/~700MB's), however it is all noise with a just a bit of audio underneath.

Farther up on this page Gordon has a post that seems to fit where I am at now, however opening the file up now as a raw file doesn't seem to be doing anything for me.

FWIW -  I had used photorec to recover anything from the R4, and was working on files from that recovery attempt. The R4 hasn't been written to, with the exception of doing a chkdsk/f on that drive.

Anyone?

Offline live2496

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #131 on: December 06, 2011, 08:36:32 PM »
The data is probably recoverable but you need to reframe the data by importing it as raw and starting at a certain offset.
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Offline Brian E.

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #132 on: December 14, 2011, 05:16:20 PM »
you saved my file!  Thank you!! :)
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Offline live2496

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #133 on: December 15, 2011, 05:52:38 PM »
Great! This has been an all round helpful thread for a lot since it was started.

I guess I should say that problems could be classified as follows:

1) Problems accessing the data. Whether this was from battery failing or media being ejected. Dropping your recorder or some such.
Solution: you need to run something that scans the media and finds all of the sectors associated with a file. CHKDSK can repair the file allocation table. Photorec was another utility mentioned. I use BadCopyPro to scan media also.

2) Problems with the file header.
Solution: This can be sometimes fixed with Pigiron's handy utility. If you are familiar with hex number format you can try to edit the front of the file with a hex editor by comparing a good file to the bad one. I use Ultraedit for this. Handy also for just viewing what's there. If you can get the first part of the file corrected, my audiohack.exe utility can scan the data and create a new good file for you.

3) Problems with the framing. You can get white noise or a mixture of low level audio and noise if the framing is incorrect.
Solution: Import as raw with a utility that can import starting at a certain offset. I import 24-bit files with up to 3 offsets that are one byte different each time. Then I look at the waveforms and listen to each to tell which file is correctly framed. (You can usually tell by the waveform though). If there are missing bytes here and there and the audio is really messed up framing-wise you may have to put the imported files on separate tracks and only use the good sections and bounce the a good file that way.

All three of these issues have to be dealt with in the correct way. If you have two or more of these issues you have to deal with each one. But importantly, if you have the data accessable you should be able to recover it somehow.

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Offline live2496

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Re: Homegrown WAVE header repair utility
« Reply #134 on: January 04, 2012, 04:40:30 PM »
I modified Audiohack to start reading at a certain offset.

So if you have a file that is not framed correctly, say a 24-bit file you could import with 3 different offsets. Then import each one into your DAW of choice. Pick the audio segments that aren't white noise and you have your recording back.

To run the program use the same instructions as before. But run it with the /P switch. And it will prompt you for the starting offset.
eg. "audiohack.exe /P"

Other than that the instructions are the same as found here: http://live2496.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=14

Use the link provided on that page to download the app. Sorry it's a command line application... but hey it's free!

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