HD corruption and MP3 recovery

[gotaudio]

Due to faulty RAM, my 200GB HD (160GB used) containing about 25,000 mp3 files became corrupted. The machine rebooted and CHKDSK deleted thousands of orphan files. I was burning a DVD when it crashed and I thought it was the 5GB file that was being fixed. I have replaced the RAM and installed a new HD.

When the machine booted there were only about 10GB of files left on the drive. I have tried a dozen HD recovery tools with little success. Getdataback, recovermyfiles and r-ntfs actually found about 5GB of files. The others found very few or none. (I have not written to the drive since the crash.)


I am looking for a program that can scan the drive (or an image of it made with one of the tools that creates disk image files) and extract .MP3 files based on headers, CRCs, and ID3 tags.

These files are all audio books, many 10 hours long. File sizes range from 5MB to 200MB. The drive was pretty new and 90% of the data was copied to it when I installed it so there is little fragmentation. I suspect most of the MP3 files are contigious. Some of the recovery tools have identified a few thousand files, but those files are most often many individual MP3 files contatenated together. I have tried mp3splt with some success on these files.

It has taken me about 2 years to rip or download these files.

I would greately appreciate any pointers or suggestions as to how to proceed. I know I could probably send the drive to a professional recovery provider, but I fear that would cost a fortune for the amout of data and number of files I have.

[Johnny Fist]

Looks like you waited a couple hours too long to back up those mp3s with your DVD burner.

[gotaudio]

I know. I had ordered a new HD that arrived in the mail the next day. I have another 200GB drive that is nearly full. Even burning DVD's would take almost 100 DVD's and considerable time. I was 24 hours from being able to back them all up to another similar PC. :(

[rmanet]

CHKDSK deleted thousands of orphan files

unless you want to spend a couple hundred bucks with a dat recovery service (call 'em - they're usually very helpful and used to talking to very depressed people) you're probably out of luck - bummer

[Johnny Fist]

I'd give up on it at this point. We've all been there before. A few years ago I wanted to cry when I hosed 3Gb of mp3s on my 15Gb drive. Live and learn, buddy.

[Bullet-Man-2]

Yuppers; it's a pain in the ****. I doubt (for cheap) you'll get to many files back.

Had a similar thing happen to me. Lost all my MP3's, but it wasn't a biggy; I just reripped most of them. Guess that's a plus of buying CD's....