Laptop Died. How to copy My Music Directory?

[mike]

How can I copy the files from "My Music" directory?

My Laptop died. XPHome NTFS.

I want to recover the music files from my hard drive.
I plugged the laptop drive onto a win2K system and tried to read the
music files. The entire directory tree under documents and settings for
my user is absent.
The disk use pie chart program shows 40GB of "files" there but won't let me
see them.

Tried the same experiment on a XP Pro system. I can see the user directory
in documents and settings, but clicking on it just beeps.
Chkdsk is happy with the laptop drive.

Ok, so I Plugged in a Knoppix Live Linux CD and booted that.
I can mount the NTFS drive and browse all over it...until I try to
browse the "my music" directory. At that point, Linux locks up so tight
the mouse won't move and I have to power it off.
Tried installing Knoppix to the hard drive...same result.
I'm root and the directories are readable and executable.
Knoppix won't let me change permissions, but root should be able to read
them????

I downloaded and installed DiskInternals NTFS Reader on a win98 machine.
It lets me copy files from the NTFS drive, but when I try to open
the "my music" directory, nothing happens.

OK, so how do I get the music files off my laptop drive? They are MP3
files and should not have any copy protection in them at all.
The laptop is dead, so that's not an option.
I'm afraid to try to boot the laptop drive on the desktop system.
I don't know what to expect and don't want to trash the files I'm trying
to recover.

What do I do?
Thanks, mike

 

[Malke]

How can I copy the files from "My Music" directory?

My Laptop died. XPHome NTFS.

I want to recover the music files from my hard drive.
I plugged the laptop drive onto a win2K system and tried to read the
music files. The entire directory tree under documents and settings for
my user is absent.
The disk use pie chart program shows 40GB of "files" there but won't let
me see them.

Tried the same experiment on a XP Pro system. I can see the user
directory in documents and settings, but clicking on it just beeps.
Chkdsk is happy with the laptop drive.

Ok, so I Plugged in a Knoppix Live Linux CD and booted that.
I can mount the NTFS drive and browse all over it...until I try to
browse the "my music" directory. At that point, Linux locks up so tight
the mouse won't move and I have to power it off.
Tried installing Knoppix to the hard drive...same result.
I'm root and the directories are readable and executable.
Knoppix won't let me change permissions, but root should be able to read
them????

I downloaded and installed DiskInternals NTFS Reader on a win98 machine.
It lets me copy files from the NTFS drive, but when I try to open
the "my music" directory, nothing happens.

OK, so how do I get the music files off my laptop drive? They are MP3
files and should not have any copy protection in them at all.
The laptop is dead, so that's not an option.
I'm afraid to try to boot the laptop drive on the desktop system.
I don't know what to expect and don't want to trash the files I'm trying
to recover.

It sounds like the hard drive is damaged. That's the only reason I can think
of why Knoppix would lock up. Linux doesn't care about any Windows
permissions. You can run a drive diagnostic downloaded from the hard drive
mftr.'s website to see if the drive is in fact damaged.

If the drive isn't damaged, the only other software I can think of for you
to try would be data recovery software like Easy Recovery Pro or maybe
R-Studio (which I've heard is good but haven't used). If that can't get the
data, you're left with the option of sending the drive to a professional
data recovery company. I prefer Drive Savers, but there are others. Prices
usually start at around $500USD and go up. Only you can decide if your
music is worth that.

DriveSavers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/

Malke

 

[Harry Ohrn MS MVP]

Likely you have a damaged drive. Personally I have had luck doing repairs
with this piece of software
http://www.tomdownload.com/utilities/file_disk_management/hdd_regenerator.htm

The program runs on the drive for several hours and if it detects bad blocks
it attempt to recover them without data loss. I have no affiliation with
this program or it's authors. I can not/will not provide any tech support
for it. I have used it as recently as a few days ago on a Maxtor drive that
Powermax identified as being damaged and was able to recover data off it.

 

[mike]

mike wrote:




It sounds like the hard drive is damaged. That's the only reason I can think
of why Knoppix would lock up. Linux doesn't care about any Windows
permissions. You can run a drive diagnostic downloaded from the hard drive
mftr.'s website to see if the drive is in fact damaged.

If the drive isn't damaged, the only other software I can think of for you
to try would be data recovery software like Easy Recovery Pro or maybe
R-Studio (which I've heard is good but haven't used). If that can't get the
data, you're left with the option of sending the drive to a professional
data recovery company. I prefer Drive Savers, but there are others. Prices
usually start at around $500USD and go up. Only you can decide if your
music is worth that.

DriveSavers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/

Malke

Thanks for the input.
I ran chkdsk e: /F. It reported no problems. Shouldn't that be
sufficient to get at least some access to the directory?
I'll try the drive vendor diagnostic.

I've had all manner of trouble with Windows 2K and XP. Something as
simple as adding then removing a second hard drive randomly creates
"windows protection error" and I've not been able to do anything but
reload a backup. I attributed my "My Music" problem to yet another
instance of Microsoft "helping" me NOT have access to my computer.

Why the heck is the problem with JUST the My Music directory???
Seems like a mighty big coincidence. Only difference is that there are
40gigs worth of files in that directory. Can I be exceeding some size
or file number limit? Also, all my test drives that I'm using to try
this recovery have been less than 4gig drives. The subject drive is
60gig. I'm intending copying the files over the network, but could the
4gig size of the local boot drive be an issue?


mike

 

[Harry Ohrn MS MVP]

Thanks for the input.
I ran chkdsk e: /F. It reported no problems. Shouldn't that be sufficient
to get at least some access to the directory?
I'll try the drive vendor diagnostic.

I've had all manner of trouble with Windows 2K and XP. Something as
simple as adding then removing a second hard drive randomly creates
"windows protection error" and I've not been able to do anything but
reload a backup. I attributed my "My Music" problem to yet another
instance of Microsoft "helping" me NOT have access to my computer.

Why the heck is the problem with JUST the My Music directory???
Seems like a mighty big coincidence. Only difference is that there are
40gigs worth of files in that directory. Can I be exceeding some size or
file number limit? Also, all my test drives that I'm using to try this
recovery have been less than 4gig drives. The subject drive is 60gig.
I'm intending copying the files over the network, but could the
4gig size of the local boot drive be an issue?


mike

Perhaps you simply need to take ownership of the directory
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

If the size of a file exceeds 4GB and the drive you are trying to copy to is
formatted as FAT32 then yes you will have a problem copying a FAT32 can't
handle an individual file of 4GB. However in your case it seems like you are
simply trying to copy a number of small files from a large drive to a small
drive. That should work fine. Once the drive becomes filled it will notify
that you that no more files can be copied.

FWIW I constantly add and remove data drives from my Windows 2000 and XP
systems and have never encountered the problem you are seeing. While I do
not have 40 GB of music files I do have over 15 GB of music files on one
drive that I've swapped in and out numerous times and I also have a drive
with over 100 GB of movies that have been swapped in and out of my system.

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the input.
I ran chkdsk e: /F. It reported no problems. Shouldn't that be
sufficient to get at least some access to the directory?
I'll try the drive vendor diagnostic.

I've had all manner of trouble with Windows 2K and XP. Something as
simple as adding then removing a second hard drive randomly creates
"windows protection error" and I've not been able to do anything but
reload a backup. I attributed my "My Music" problem to yet another
instance of Microsoft "helping" me NOT have access to my computer.

Why the heck is the problem with JUST the My Music directory???
Seems like a mighty big coincidence. Only difference is that there are
40gigs worth of files in that directory. Can I be exceeding some size
or file number limit? Also, all my test drives that I'm using to try
this recovery have been less than 4gig drives. The subject drive is
60gig. I'm intending copying the files over the network, but could the
4gig size of the local boot drive be an issue?

Do as I suggested and run a hard drive diagnostic. It will be more accurate
as to the physical health of the drive than Chkdsk, which is why I
suggested it in the first place.

If you are having this many problems, then perhaps you have more hardware
issues than just the drive. Is this a dual-boot computer (since you
reference Win2k and XP)?

It really isn't possible to give you more focused troubleshooting without
knowing more about your computer, what the "all manner of trouble" means,
what file systems are in use, etc.

You also reference "4gig" as a drive size twice - do you really mean *40*
GB? With what file system is the 60GB data drive formatted? What about the
target drives? If any are FAT32, then that could be causing problems.

Remember, although the problems are fresh in your mind and therefore vivid
to *you*, we cannot see your computer from here and you need to be
descriptive.

Also, what is the virus/malware status of your computer? If you obtained
those 40GB of music files from P2P sources, it is completely possible that
you picked up some malware. Malware would not cause physical damage to a
drive of course, but could certainly be responsible for "all manner of
problems".

Malke

 

[Phil Weldon]

'mike' wrote:

How did you load the tunes into 'My Music'? How did you play the tunes?
For example, with Windows Media Player, the tunes are shown organized by
Album, Artist, etc., but there really is no directory structure. The tunes
are all stored directly in 'My Music'.

Windows 2000 Pro and Windows XP are much more stable than previous, non NT
based MS operating systems, and NTFS is much more robust than FAT. The
problems you report seem more likely to be hardware problems than OS
problems.

Did you have a security setting on the original 'My Music' directory?

The clean report from chkdsk is in contradiction to your inability to open
the 'My Music' directory.

Try to eliminate as many variables as possible, slow down, and take notes.
Don't jump to conclusions.

The size limits for NTFS are
Maximum size file: 16 Terabyte
Maximum size Volume: 256 Terabyte
Maximum files per Volume: 4,294,967,296
I don't think you are in any danger here B^)

On each of two computers (one desktop, one notebook) I have 8000 tunes in
..wma format stored in 'My Music', for a total of 36.5 GBytes. I have had no
problem with copying to DVD, transferring on a LAN, or backing up.

Phil Weldon




|
| Thanks for the input.
| I ran chkdsk e: /F. It reported no problems. Shouldn't that be
| sufficient to get at least some access to the directory?
| I'll try the drive vendor diagnostic.
|
| I've had all manner of trouble with Windows 2K and XP. Something as
| simple as adding then removing a second hard drive randomly creates
| "windows protection error" and I've not been able to do anything but
| reload a backup. I attributed my "My Music" problem to yet another
| instance of Microsoft "helping" me NOT have access to my computer.
|
| Why the heck is the problem with JUST the My Music directory???
| Seems like a mighty big coincidence. Only difference is that there are
| 40gigs worth of files in that directory. Can I be exceeding some size
| or file number limit? Also, all my test drives that I'm using to try
| this recovery have been less than 4gig drives. The subject drive is
| 60gig. I'm intending copying the files over the network, but could the
| 4gig size of the local boot drive be an issue?
|
|
| mike

 

[Bob Harris]

I would have bet on KNOPPIX. The fact that that fails bothers me, a lot.
As an experiment, try copying one small file from any other directory to a
floppy, ZIP, USB drive, etc. If that fails, then I would worry about the
physical disk and/or its file system.

I do agree with one of the previous replies, use the disk-maker's diagnostic
routines, not just CHKDSK.

Any chance that the "My Music" directory on your PC was encrypted using the
Win XP encryption routines? I had thought to be a "feature" of the Pro
version of XP, but maybe the home version can do it too. If so, then the
entire subdirectory would appear to be one (unreadable) file. I doubt that
KNOPPIX would like that. If encrypted, nothing will read it, except the
original PC (if alive) or another PC running that version of XP and with a
floppy disk containing the decryption keys. Without those keys, forget it.

Another possibility is that the directory or its files are compressed. XP,
even XP home, can compress files to save space. But, I suspect that the
compression is not a simple WINZIP type, so maybe that is cuasing problems.
However, another XP machine should be able to read XP-compressed files. I
am not sure whether win2K can.

 

[mike]

Perhaps you simply need to take ownership of the directory
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

Yep, I put the drive in a USB box and stumbled across the ownership
problem. That fixed it, got the files. Thanks.

FWIW I constantly add and remove data drives from my Windows 2000 and XP
systems and have never encountered the problem you are seeing. While I do
not have 40 GB of music files I do have over 15 GB of music files on one
drive that I've swapped in and out numerous times and I also have a drive
with over 100 GB of movies that have been swapped in and out of my system.

ALL FILE SYSTEMS DISCUSSED BELOW ARE FAT32
If you have the patience, I'd like to explore this further.
I have a system that I use for testing hardware and software before I
put it on some system I care about. I have Win2K as primary partition
on Primary Master IDE. Two or 3 other primary partitions for files
depending on which drive I have in the slot. I can dual boot it, but
this seems unrelated to the problem.
CDRW is on Secondary Slave assigned letter "P" Windows manages the
other drive letters...life is good.

I stick a second hard drive on Secondary Master. FAT32, 1 to 4 total
primary partitions, depending on which drive. I use it for backups
and to clone drives.

I have not been able to duplicate it at will, but sometimes, when I
remove the secondary master drive, the primary master won't boot.
"Windows Protection Error". I have not been able to recover without
restoring a ghost image.

I researched the problem and found several people complaining about the
problem. Something to do with windows moving drive letters around.
When you remove the second drive, some part of windows thinks the drive
is one place and some other part of windows thinks the drive is
somewhere else..."windows protection error". There were no solutions
presented.

Ideas? I'd really like to be able to slam drives in and out without
worrying about trashing the system.

mike

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Hi Mike. You data drive partitions should not be created as Primary
Partitions. Non booting partitions should be Logical partitions

 

[mike]

Hi Mike. You data drive partitions should not be created as Primary
Partitions. Non booting partitions should be Logical partitions

On my test drive, I can boot partition 3, clone it to partition 1
and be right back to baseline after I test a program/piece of hardware.
I can store different images of partition 1 on partition 3 and quickly
make a virgin system in any known configuration I want on partition 1.
That's the whole idea of the test system.
Don't think I can do that with logical partitions???

Been doing this successfully for years with win98. Had to change to
Win2K to get USB 2.0 to work reliably. Now my test configuration is
broke. XP adds additional roadblocks to my using MY system the way
I want, so I'm resisting XP as long as I can.

mike