Topic: software to repair corrupted flacs?

[whatboutbob]

grr...one of my hdd's just corrupted about 200 flac files...and of course its the only drive i haven't backed up (i'd planned to do it this w/e to add salt to the wound).

does anyone know of any tools that could repair the files?

i'm getting a bunch of different errors, though the main culprits are:

FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_UNPARSEABLE_STREAM, ERROR_FRAME_CRC_MISMATCH @ 0m 0s, ERROR_LOST_SYNC @ 0m 0s

[Brian Skalinder]

I don't know of any utilities to fix the FLACs.  But...have you tried:

<1>  diagnostics/repairs on your HD and then decoding again?
<2>  copying the offending files to a different HD and decoding there instead?
<3>  decoding through the errors and see if the WAVs come through okay?

[Steve J]

<2>  copying the offending files to a different HD and decoding there instead?
<3>  decoding through the errors and see if the WAVs come through okay?

These two have worked for me. I got a new hard drive and mounted it in an external firewire enclosure. I then was able to move most of the shows over to the new hard drive (5 shows appeared to be corrupted). I was able to extract 2 of the shows to WAV (using the "Dec. through Errors" option) and move the WAV's to the new drive. I wasn't able to retrieve the last 3 shows; but I did manage to get everything else off the 160 GB drive.

[whatboutbob]

Thanks guys.

Unfortunately I've tried all of Brian's suggestions to no avail.

Having said that, I haven't used too many 3rd party options to diagnose/repair the hdd tho...so if anyone's got any suggestions I'd be happy to try them.

First thing I tried was copying over to the shiny new sata drive i'd initially bought for the express purpose of backing up these files (b4 they were buggered).  The files still have the exact same issues tho.

I'm actually starting to think its not the hdd...but rather windows screwing the hdd...if that makes any sense?  I'd just finished upgrading my system and reinstalling winblows xp pro when on about the new machine's 4th boot, the blue chkdsk screen came up prompting to scan the drive.  It promptly started running through a few hundred 'orphan' files, and then salvaging them.  I suspect it may have been the winblows reinstall that's buggered things.  Am googling around atm and it seems to happen a bit.  The hdd appears to be fine...except for the stackload of corrupted files. :-/

It's particularly irritating because its a couple of tracks per show that have been corrupted (just about every show).  Aaanyways...I'm pretty much resigned to losing the files...but I'll hold off for a couple of days in case anyone has any suggestions.

[whatboutbob]

*slaps head*

i think i've found the cause of the problem. i used the wrong bloody install disk for windows (i've got a few lying around).  Anyways...twit that I am...i installed SP1 instead of SP2.  Support for large hdd's only cam in with SP2...so now I've just gotta find my SP2 disk and...well...i don't know if the files will still be buggered. we'll see.

[nic]

Support for large hdd's only cam in with SP2...

what size HD is considered "large"?
I've got a .5 terabyte raid 1 partition working under SP1 with no problems whatsoever...

you can always download SP2 from Microsoft

[whatboutbob]

Correction: i think i was using a pre SP1 disc. Large hdd support must've come in with SP1. It was yonks ago that i was reading about it (hence the haziness), but I think XP pro pre-SP1 was capped at 137gb or 167gb.  The hdd in question is 200gig.  Will do some googling when i get home, but the important thing (to me) is that I've upgraded Windows to SP2 and ALL the files are automagically uncorrupted. 

Found the SP2 disc eventually, so all's well.  (prolly sounds silly but I was trying to avoid d/ling big windows updates, cos my d/l quota is just about maxed out and i hate being capped at 56k).

Aaanyways...I intend to destroy that old install disc asap.

First item on the to-do list tonight: research raid.

Thanks for your help folks.