Karaoke Forums

I have a WD 500 gig external hard drive with all my music on it and it fell and hit floor. Now my laptop will not recognize it and we haven't backed it up yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thx.

Suggestion: Backup next time.

Sounds like the drive may be buggerd. Now, if you're up to it, rip the actual drive out and connect.

How much are you willing to pay for the recovery? There are a few companies that can remove the data from your drive to another drive but they are pricey. They can run in to hundreds of dollars at minimum, thousands for a large drive.

If you are interested in talking to them, check out www.drivesavers.com.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

If it's the external USB case itself and not the drive and if the drive is a Serial ATA you could try something like the Thermaltake BlacX. I use one and have found it very easy to use and useful in retrieving data from old drives. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CVRqCjCVRq

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Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

Take it to a local computer repair shop.

I have a drive case that can withstand a fall from a table top. It cost almost as much as the hdd itself. I have seen the demo of the drop and the drive still work. I have never try dropping it tho'.

http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/Mo ... 1&LangNo=0

And that same drive was full of Trojans and virus after I transfer a huge photo files of some concert to a friend's laptop. 32 instances of virus and trojans. My PC would not even want to open the drive. And since all the data in that drive are also in my other drive I just did not bother to clean or quarantine those bugs. Re-formating is route I took.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

yeah, it's your hard drive. You can try to put it in another usb case... but chances are it's the heads crashed on the platter, the micro chip broke, etc.

It's also the biggest reason I hate the external cases. Just one more thing to fail. I love 'em, but like suggested, I always make a backup and it goes on the shelf JUST in case.

I've had hard drives fail for no reason... that's just what happens sometimes. You HAVE to plan for that eventuality!

I have a very redundant method of keeping backups:

1) I keep the original discs stored safely

2) I rip and download everything to my primary home pc and save it on an external hard drive connected to that pc.

3) I copy everything over to a second external hard drive which I use as a drive for my backup laptop karaoke system.

4) I have a new laptop with a 320gb hard drive that I use as my primary system, and to keep the setup easy, I have copied everything over to the internal hard drive on that laptop. I know it puts a little more strain on the laptop drive, but it is so much easier, and with 2 other backups, I feel pretty well covered.

By the way, everyone is talking about 500gb drives, and I think it is fine to have more than you need, but I have 13,000 songs, along with about 500 music tracks for filler, and with it all zipped it only takes up about 90gb on my drive. I think it would take me years to collect enough music to fill 500gb. Of course I only put my own discs and legal downloads on my drive.

Not if you have the Pioneer lasers ripped!

Which I do... also, if you're using far larger and quality sound files, rather than the uber compressed. Most people feel the standard is 192kbps (used to be 128), but more and more are using 320 or higher.

This is another reason I am not a fan of external drives for prduction applications. The more parts, the more cables, the more things to fail.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Yep, same here. That's why I migrated over to the USB FLASH drive instead, no worries about breaking them. I have about 50GB worth of music, CD+G and video so they fit nicely on a 64GB USB FLASH drive. I have a copy on my rackmount computer system so I just use the USB on the laptop. They cost about $100 now, which is pretty reasonable.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

QUESTION: I use a 300gb external hardrive due mostly becuase the time I boiught my laptop 100gb was all you could get. NOwadays you can get a laptop with 5ooGB

Is it still better to use an external ? or is an enternal drive better ( I assume quicker response) but what if that fails due to all the work at a show ????

Are there any tracks on the old pioneer lasers that aren't on CDG discs now? How many of those tracks are ACTUALLY LOST ON LASERS at this time? Just curious to know if it's worth it to take the time to try to convert mine.

Internal laptop drive is the way to go...

Once it's loaded with all the music, just clone the disk to an external drive, this way you'll have an identical drive if that laptop drive ever dies on you

External drives are not necessary anymore except for backing up...

Thank you ..next laptop will be an internal drive for sure !!!

Having used both ways, internal, then external and then back to internal (after installing a larger HD) I would totally agree with Micky's statements above. If you can get everything on the internal do it, if you can't then look into upgrading your internal HD so you can...and then just as Micky stated - clone the internal drive to an external drive for a complete backup (OS and all)

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

There's a few... I guess it depends on your interests in the specific versions. I find the Pioneer version of Silent Lucidity spectactular, and love the video! Same thing with Smoky Mountain Rain.

To me, it's about the investment, and the fact that those vids are so cheesy you love 'em!