Messed up EHD and WMV/WMA will no longer play - help!!

[babydoll]

OK - so if one more thing goes wrong for me technically I swear I'll take up reading and move to the country!

 

Brand new laptop - had malware, (don't you just love that as a gift with a brand new laptop), so, I was having a few USB connection issues with my EHDs after I got the new laptop anyway - about a month in, the laptop was no able to start-up, so I had to completely reboot the system, (not impressed that a new system made me do that!), did that last week, so now I'm re-installing slowly all the programs that I use - and one of my EHDs (I have 2, one for TV shows, and one for... everything else), everytime I plugged it into a USB port it told me that the disk needed formatting before I could use it - I have a LOT of precious files accumulated on there I wasn't planning on formatting that disk straight away - so I did some research, and found a program that allowed me to backup all my files, so I was able to format the disk, great I thought (except now my laptop is red on remaining memory) and then I will put the files back on one I can access the disck again.

 

So my issues are as follows:

 

1. It was a difficult process formatting the disc, and I'm having trouble getting files back on it because it keeps disconnecting itself from the USB port at inconvenient moments without warning

 

2. All of the WMA and WMV files backed up from this disc (and most of these are videos and songs I have made myself over the last 8 years)n will not play. This is the major issue that nearly had me snap the laptop in 2 the other day, it said something about needing codecs and compressed files - so I downloaded the Windows 7 codec pack, nothing - these files are important I MUST find a way of playing them!!

 

PLease help me!

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to ExTS

 

You have 2 issues - let's take the External Hard Drive first. ( You may wish to start a seperate thread re the other problem ).

 

1. You say you had problems formatting .............How did you format it?

 

Plug it in.

Start > Type in .......diskmgmt.msc ........ENTER

 

2. Does the drive show up here?

 

3. What is listed against the drive ? ( Something like .......F:\ 120GB NTFS Healthy (Active) )

[babydoll]

Yep, H: active primary partition - same as it was before formatting (I think it was a windows 7 assigning discs to USB ports error)...

 

It's more or less OK now, I've manage to get across most of my files - just as long as I put it on a flat surface and don't move any of the wires around it it won't disconnect -

 

The files in question however, are taking a turn for the worse - all of my music is also on this disc - mostly mp3s - if I try to play one of them on Windows Media Player (my primary player), it crashes the player - I don't know if it's the files or the player, anymore, because the other files that aren't working are all windows media files, but I can play AVIs + Mpegs from the same EHD on the player fine.

[KenB]

and don't move any of the wires around it it won't disconnect -

This sounds like a bad connection.

External HDDs can be taken apart to inspect the internal connections - this is an option.

 

Regarding your music problem - Nev ( one of our Moderators ) may be able to advise better than me.

I will send him a PM.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi,

There are a few things I can mention here, but first if at all possible via maybe a friend, can you try this external hard drive on a different computer. That is so we can rule in or out the player on your laptop, and also the files on your External hard drive. Also I would suggest a new USB lead to try and stop this cutting out, the worry with that is that files can be damaged which are stored on that EHD, and could be the reason why some will no longer play.

Let us know if it is possible to try it on a different computer or not and I can possibly go from there.

Nev.

[babydoll]

Yea the EHD has no problems on other computers - I imagine it's because I use my laptop on my bed it moves around an awful lot...

 

However - the files are not working on any computer - my theory is that they were compressed when they were backed up - and this has made them unusuable, until I... uncompress them?

 

Basically it is now all WMV,WMA & MP3 files that I backed up from the EHD before formatting the disk will not play - they make the media players crash, iTunes won't recognise them - they are basically useless to me - this is my major concern right now as it's maybe, 5000 important files here that I cannot use - is there any solution to this problem?

Edited September 28, 2011 by babydoll

[Plastic Nev]

Hi,

what is the file extension to those files, is it just WMV, or MP3 or is there some more either before or after those normal letters?

 

I am thinking perhaps a file converter program may throw some light on this, there is a wonderful and free download you could try called Any Video Converter, if the files are corrupt and unusable it will at least tell you so, otherwise it should be able to handle them or at worse tell you they are compressed, though normally it can handle that too.

Here is the address to download it from=

 

http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/

 

I suggest trying one or perhaps several through it, it will convert any video file, to any other format, if the file is OK. You may then be able to view them if it will convert them to say AVI or similar.

 

Nev.

[RandyL]

Just a quick concern here.

I use my laptop on my bed

Laptops should always be on a flat hard surface. Placing one on a bed can cause serious over heating.

[babydoll]

"Cannot get information from video file C:.......blahblah... Insert Failed!" (The exclamation mark was included here)

 

So what does that mean? The files are compressed?

[4ndy]

Is the external drive powered by the USB cable or does it have its own power supply?

 

I've bought a few (solely USB powered) in the past (Verbatim etc) which work fine initially then gradually become more unreliable. Take them out of the manufacturers container and power them up using a PC's SATA power supply connector and they work fine again (you can back them up NP's using this method)

I'm thinking something goes out of tollerance, power-wise, with the cheapy little interface board.

[babydoll]

Yea - I have had it a while - but that doesn't help me with my files?!!

 

I'm awaiting a new iPod through the post - and currently no valid songs to put on it!

 

To answer another question - yes the file types are just .wmv .wma and .mp3 there are no other additions to the file names - and the file sizes SEEM to be the same as they were before - not that I memorised them, but they look about right to me.

[Plastic Nev]

I would think the files are not compressed if file size is the same as original.

I am not happy about that report which I assume came from AVC when it tried to open the file. I am sorry but it does look like corruption has happened to them.

As I said earlier, the EHD cutting out due to poor connection is the most likely reason for that corruption.

I will leave it open in case someone has any idea's as to how to rescue those files, but if not, it looks like they are gone.

 

Nev.

[paulc]

so I did some research, and found a program that allowed me to backup all my files, !

 

what program did you use.

do you still have any of the backup files on your laptop. if so see if they will play

 

1 just to see if it is the Media player or not download vlc player from here http://download.cnet.com/VLC-Media-Player/3000-13632_4-10267151.html?tag=mncol;2

and see if that can play them it plays most file types.

2 download k-lite codec pack. it may be just a codec that you need to play them http://download.cnet.com/K-Lite-Mega-Codec-Pack/3000-13632_4-10794603.html?tag=mncol;1

[babydoll]

OK, so the program I used to back up the files is called Easy Recovery Pro,

 

and these backed up files on my laptop are the files in question here that don't work

 

I have already tried VLC player and it cannot read the files.

 

Tried the codec, no luck there either, seemed to make no difference.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, I have just re read through in case I missed something earlier, so let us just have a recap on what happened.

 

First, some short time after buying your laptop you finished up with a bad virus which forced you to re install Windows which sent the laptop back to what is called factory condition. Is that correct?

 

You had also a large number of music and video files stored on an external hard drive, however after restoring the laptop to factory condition, it refused to see all the files on the external hard drive, and told you the drive needed formatting.

 

You did that and reformatted the external drive, then found all the files gone from the hard drive, however you found and used a file recovery software to rescue those files, in doing so you put the files onto the laptop rather than back to the external drive. Is that also correct so far?

 

Now the Windows media files and only those that were on that hard drive, cannot be played or recognised by any player, yet non WMV or WMP files are OK?

 

If you can just clear this up I will have perhaps a better idea of what we may try next.

 

After a few answers and replies, things sometimes can get confused when new information comes to light you see.

Nev.

[babydoll]

Yea I think that more or less sums it up.

 

To clarify - the only files I have a problem with (as far as I know) are the files backed up from the disk which are in the following formats: WMA WMV MP3 - The problem being that this is MOST of my 100GB of files from this disc! (there's a few CSI and Charmed episodes that are working fine but other than that...)

 

My other video and sound files are fine - I can't say for sure with documents because I haven't yet installed Microsoft Office since having to restore the laptop - I've not really needed them that much the last week or so!

[4ndy]

What happens if -

 

1/You drag a music file from the external drive to the desktop, then try to play it.

 

2/ You use some of these suspect music files to produce an audio CD (not a data cd with mp3's on BTW) using your burning software and play that (say, in a standalone).

 

?

[babydoll]

1. The files aren't on my external hard drive any more, they're in another folder on my computer from when I backed them up - but moving them to the desktop makes abolutely no difference

 

2. All of the programs I have that make Audio CDs will not read the files

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, this may be worth a try, on any one of the files that won't play, right click on it, in the box that opens click "Properties" In the properties box click the tab for "Previous versions" if there is one it will come up, click on "Restore" and hopefully that should then play.

If not there may be something else to try, so let us know.

Nev.

[babydoll]

Hi, this may be worth a try, on any one of the files that won't play, right click on it, in the box that opens click "Properties" In the properties box click the tab for "Previous versions" if there is one it will come up, click on "Restore" and hopefully that should then play.

If not there may be something else to try, so let us know.

Nev.

 

Well it was a nice idea and something I hadn't thought of...

 

However the preious versions only dated back as far as the last few days since I had backed up the files, so this was a fail I'm afraid. :(

[Plastic Nev]

OK thanks for trying, though I wasn't too hopeful ;)

 

Let's go through some things then and see if there are any clues.

First right click on a file again, do you get a "Take ownership" if so try that first,

if that does nothing go to the bottom of the list and lets have a look at "Properties",

Under the general tab for "Type of File" it should say "MP3 Format Sound (.MP3)"

If an MP3 file originally.

For WMV it should say "Windows Media Audio/Video File (.WMV)

 

If they show as that, (Let me know if not, and what it says) We need to look at the "Security" tab in the properties box, it should list you under Group or user names, and it should also have ticks under Allow in Permissions for Everyone except no tick at all for Special Permissions.

Next to look at is the details tab, scroll down to folder path, it should read = C:\Users\your name\My videos.

C: being the drive it is on or other letter if different, My Videos being the folder it is in if a video file.

Let me know if anything different shows up in those searches.

 

Nev.

[Mag476]

Sorry to hear about your problem babydoll, I know how frustrating it can be when you can't access or lose your media completely. Just for clarification are you just trying to play these files from your external hard drive? if so, have you tried copying them to another hard drive and tried running them from there? if the file(s) won't copy then it is most likely a faulty external drive, if they do copy but are still unsusable (corrupt or anything else along those lines) then they may be unrecoverable.

 

Also try using VLC media player just incase it is a codec problem, you can find it here if you're not using it already. VLC will rebuild corrupt avi indexes for problems similar to yours, but i'm not so sure about wmv files, if vlc won't fix it try wmvindexer

Edited October 1, 2011 by Mag476

[babydoll]

All that stuff is as it should be - Ownership is mine,

 

the files are as they should be, (.mp3/.wmv/.wma)

 

And the security permissions and file locations are exactly as you said they should be.

 

ETA: For Mag's response. I am not playing these files from my External Hard Drive - I backed them up using Easy Recovery Pro when I needed to format the disc - the files are now on my laptop - and no matter where I move them I have the same problem. VLC player was one of the first things I tried. It just crashes. I do believe these files are recoverable, otherwise I would probably have smashed this laptop and be claiming compensation round about now!

Edited October 1, 2011 by babydoll

[Plastic Nev]

OK, everything is now looking to be some damage to the files, why? I can only assume that happened in the original virus attack rather than since, but you never can tell.

Anyway, I have trawled all over the place looking for anything looking promising and I have found a free download for a file repair software, have a look here and give it a try, you never know it just might be what you need.

 

http://www.filerepair1.com/

 

best of luck,

 

Nev.

[babydoll]

OK, now I'm worried - I tried the file repair... tried a few different files, each time I got the error "No Data, File is empty, nothing to repair" :(