Posted on 08/09/2023 9:51:17 PM PDT by PROCON
*SIGH*, I had my desktop computer crash, renewed 10 year old Dell (Win10) last week, just went blank, screen eventually came up asking if I wanted to do a diagnostic test, I hit yes and after the diagnosis it said it didn't recognize my hard drive.
Where TF did my hard drive go?
Anyway, not being a computer nerd I ordered a different (HP) renewed computer from Amazon, it arrived Sunday, set it up and through my Microsoft account was able to recover all my files, documents, pictures, etc but not my MP3 music. 😥.
What happened to my music files?
I'm not a computer nerd so please be gentle and use terms I might understand 'cuz I really miss that music!
Bookmarked that item.
That’s a utility that I don’t think I ever heard of.
Record players in cars were a thing back in the 1950s and early 1960s but it didn’t last for obvious reasons. Chrysler had it as an option and called it Highway Hi Fi.
After all, the "cloud" is merely marketing for other people's drives. Never had much trust in "other people" especially when they say it's free. In computer and internet parlance, that means we are the access and data they seek.
Get a 1 TB external hard drive and back up to it on a monthly basis. Doesn’t help get your mp3 files back but will prevent future loss.
I’ve keep several HDD caddies around and more than once they saved the day for me or someone else who ran into this kind of problem.
In an age of music streaming, why do you need MP3 files?
“So I downloaded a portable Linux kernel that would run on a bootable thumb drive so I could boot the computer without using the hard drive. I was still able to see the files and get them moved off.”
Yep, absolutely. Every windows owner should have one even if just for this reason alone. :)
no Cloud for me
Ever
“Am I the only one who doesn’t true the Cloud?”
No; you’re not!! I don’t trust any Cloud technology and, AFAIK, am not connected with any. Once Verizon gave me “complimentary Cloud” as a perk. I usually just delete their junk, read this notification for some reason. On the phone, SCREAMING to put an end to that. I guess they did. (How would you know?)
“I keep worrying anything on the Cloud might be hacked and stolen.”
Ya THINK? As if it isn’t already being hacked and stolen.
“Regular backing-up of your files is your friend.”
Yes indeed, and you can buy a 128gb thumb drive for less than $15. To me that’s mind boggling — something the size of a couple of cigarettes, for less than $15, storing 128gb!!!
Backup speed might be slow but just start it, go away, and come back later.
Get several of them. Hide them in various places.
Same here. I go through spurts But there was a day when my world was filled with music 24 hours a day.
“you can buy a 128gb thumb drive for less than $15.”
That is always in my purse with all my music.
Take the Hard Drive and put it in another computer, but NOT as the Bootable drive, just a data drive.
The other computer should recognize it and hopefully access those files like they were its own................
Sign up for a music subscription service such as Spotify or Apple Music (there are others and you don't need an Apple computer to use Apple Music).
These services cost around $10/mo on average. Not only do you have streaming and download access to pretty much every album out there, but you can upload your own music and it will be stored for you to retrieve at anytime if needed (or you can just stream it).
This comes in handy for me because for many years from about the 1970s to 1990s, I taped an enormous amount of content off the radio. Top 40 shows, Christmas shows, live recordings, and other things not available to purchase. So I have quite the investment in music myself, as it took me many hours to convert it all to MP3 format. With a music service, I have piece of mind that all of it is backed up.
Even if you decide to cancel the music service later, you can still download your uploaded content before doing so (however, anything you downloaded that was not yours, you will lose).
$10/mo might seem expensive to some but for me it actually saved me a lot of money as I used to buy at least 3-5 music albums a month prior to going with a music subscription service. Now I don't buy any albums at all, while having access to all of them.
For a music fan, it's a real good deal.
I don't even know what a hard drive looks like, I'm that computer illiterate.
I'm just going to take the dead CPU to a computer guy and let him deal with it, thanks.
“That is always in my purse with all my music.”
Inside that thumb drive is a single chip with all of that memory. Mind boggling. Where will all of this end?
.
Second Bookmark
Strange, indeed.
Best advice he’s gotten is to consult a geek pro. There’s no advice for him sans hands-on help.
Eyes-on the HDD and OneDrive might reveal the files.
Definitely odd.
This is why backups matter. I take a full backup of my desktop daily, with quarterly offsite backups as well.
Once you get your stuff back, set up an external drive as a backup device, and use it regularly.
Thanks for the ping.
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