External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!!

blinkgecko182 · 07-27-2008, 11:30 PM

Hello everyone,

I bought a 180GB Rock Mobile Disk External Hard Drive about 1 month ago to store all my music on it, 50GB worth, for Itunes. Four days ago I put on about 1GB more worth of music and that's when things started to go bad. The next time I opened my Itunes over half of my songs could not be played. So I found the files on my external hard drive and they would still tell me how many KB each song had. Then I would try playing the songs that wouldn't work on Itunes on other programs, while also trying Itunes again. It also seems like every time I get onto my external hard drive that there are more and more songs that stop working.

Does anyone know what I can do so that I can get my songs to start working again!???

Thank you very much for everyone's help, I really do need it!

P.S. - If there's any confusion in understanding my message just let me know and I'll try explaining it in a different way.

Thanks again

~~wiseleo~~ · 07-27-2008, 11:38 PM

Try another media player. VLC plays just about everything. www.videolan.org

Otherwise, possibly a dying disk.

mngo7 · 07-28-2008, 02:24 AM

Yes, try VLC or any audio playing software first to see if the music is corrupt or not. If the music is playable in other software, it is an iTunes issue. Perhaps it is not linking with your music properly, but I'm really not sure. If the music is corrupt, your hard drisk is probably failing and you should backup if possible. Also check your USB connection and drivers and ensure those are up-to-date. Good luck!

blinkgecko182 · 07-28-2008, 04:51 PM

Thank you for the replies and suggestions but the VLC is not working, I think the files are corrupted. I also checked the USB connection and that's working fine, I don't necessarily think it's iTunes that's messing it up, it's the files to each song, because some songs work and others don't.

Is there anyway that I can save the files so that they'll work again? How would I go about doing that??

Thank you.

~~wiseleo~~ · 07-28-2008, 04:55 PM

Clone the disk as per instructions in my signature, then attempt to salvage your music from the image.

If you are lucky, it will still be possible. I don't know if your USB enclosure might be at fault. I would extract the disk from it and plug it into a known working system.

Why my method and not the simpler ones? I suspect your disk has bad sectors, so normal tools would probably fail.

blinkgecko182 · 07-29-2008, 10:08 AM

Great thanks, I'll give that a try...

07-27-2008, 11:30 PM	#1 (permalink)
blinkgecko182 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 3 OS: xp	External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!! Hello everyone, I bought a 180GB Rock Mobile Disk External Hard Drive about 1 month ago to store all my music on it, 50GB worth, for Itunes. Four days ago I put on about 1GB more worth of music and that's when things started to go bad. The next time I opened my Itunes over half of my songs could not be played. So I found the files on my external hard drive and they would still tell me how many KB each song had. Then I would try playing the songs that wouldn't work on Itunes on other programs, while also trying Itunes again. It also seems like every time I get onto my external hard drive that there are more and more songs that stop working. Does anyone know what I can do so that I can get my songs to start working again!??? Thank you very much for everyone's help, I really do need it! P.S. - If there's any confusion in understanding my message just let me know and I'll try explaining it in a different way. Thanks again

07-27-2008, 11:38 PM	#2 (permalink)
~~wiseleo~~ Troubled Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: San Francisco Bay Area Posts: 461 OS: Win 2003 SP2 My System	Re: External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!! Try another media player. VLC plays just about everything. www.videolan.org Otherwise, possibly a dying disk.

07-28-2008, 02:24 AM	#3 (permalink)
mngo7 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 14 OS: Xp SP3	Re: External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!! Yes, try VLC or any audio playing software first to see if the music is corrupt or not. If the music is playable in other software, it is an iTunes issue. Perhaps it is not linking with your music properly, but I'm really not sure. If the music is corrupt, your hard drisk is probably failing and you should backup if possible. Also check your USB connection and drivers and ensure those are up-to-date. Good luck!

07-28-2008, 04:51 PM	#4 (permalink)
blinkgecko182 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 3 OS: xp	Re: External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!! Thank you for the replies and suggestions but the VLC is not working, I think the files are corrupted. I also checked the USB connection and that's working fine, I don't necessarily think it's iTunes that's messing it up, it's the files to each song, because some songs work and others don't. Is there anyway that I can save the files so that they'll work again? How would I go about doing that?? Thank you.

07-28-2008, 04:55 PM	#5 (permalink)
~~wiseleo~~ Troubled Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: San Francisco Bay Area Posts: 461 OS: Win 2003 SP2 My System	Re: External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!! Clone the disk as per instructions in my signature, then attempt to salvage your music from the image. If you are lucky, it will still be possible. I don't know if your USB enclosure might be at fault. I would extract the disk from it and plug it into a known working system. Why my method and not the simpler ones? I suspect your disk has bad sectors, so normal tools would probably fail.

07-29-2008, 10:08 AM	#6 (permalink)
blinkgecko182 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 3 OS: xp	Re: External Hard Drive Help, Please!!!! Great thanks, I'll give that a try...