[Jonasklam]

Ok,
 
So I listen to music all the time and I have noticed that some of my files are corrupt - meaning that they are missing half the song :O, or sometimes just the last 20 secs of the song.
 
The files are Aiff usually and converted from FLAC.
 
Can files really become corrupt over time??
 
 

 

[thuantran]

Normally no, where did you put these audio files?

 

[Satellite_6]

Hopefully you have a backup. Hard drives aren't 100% reliable. 

 

[holofernes]

I've heard there was a program that can rebuild a damaged file using approximations of what should be there based on the surronding code.
Howver i dont think its 100% correct so searching around on cnet on file repairer could help.

 

[Jonasklam]

Quote:

I've heard there was a program that can rebuild a damaged file using approximations of what should be there based on the surronding code.
Howver i dont think its 100% correct so searching around on cnet on file repairer could help.

Cool man,
 
Basicly I would just hear if somebody knew if files could degrade over time?
 
 

 

[ekliptiko]

ideally, the audio file itself should not degrade. but dont forget hard drive failure/misbehavior is not uncommon.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Files don't spontaneously degrade over time.  What can happen though is that they can get corrupted if processed with a program that doesn't properly support the format.  So in other words they get opened and processed with a program that is buggy.
 
A couple of possibilities.
 
The program you used to convert the FLAC files to AIFF didn't do it right.
 
A program you used to play the files tried to write incorrect tags to the AIFF files.  Like maybe a program tried to write ID3 tags (the tags used for MP3) to the AIFF files.  That would corrupt the AIFF files.
 
One thing to try is open a copy of one of the affected files in MP3Tag and see what types of tags it says it has.  Try deleting (removing) all of the tags using MP3Tag and see if the file plays normally.

 

[TheKisho]

My bet is on bit rot if he did nothing, assuming the songs were perfectly converted and at one time played all the way through without error.  Time for a new hard drive. Hard drive sectors go bad eventually from use, it's nothing new.  Backup before you lose anything more and stop using that hard drive.  If you want to see if you can recover some of those files you could always use SpinRite on the drive to see if those probably bad sectors where they [the music] live can be recovered so you can get back some of the lost/damaged music.

 

[Jonasklam]

Quote:

My bet is on bit rot if he did nothing, assuming the songs were perfectly converted and at one time played all the way through without error.  Time for a new hard drive. Hard drive sectors go bad eventually from use, it's nothing new.  Backup before you lose anything more and stop using that hard drive.  If you want to see if you can recover some of those files you could always use SpinRite on the drive to see if those probably bad sectors where they [the music] live can be recovered so you can get back some of the lost/damaged music.

 
Quote:

Files don't spontaneously degrade over time.  What can happen though is that they can get corrupted if processed with a program that doesn't properly support the format.  So in other words they get opened and processed with a program that is buggy.
 
A couple of possibilities.
 
The program you used to convert the FLAC files to AIFF didn't do it right.
 
A program you used to play the files tried to write incorrect tags to the AIFF files.  Like maybe a program tried to write ID3 tags (the tags used for MP3) to the AIFF files.  That would corrupt the AIFF files.
 
One thing to try is open a copy of one of the affected files in MP3Tag and see what types of tags it says it has.  Try deleting (removing) all of the tags using MP3Tag and see if the file plays normally.

 
Woaw guys, this really helps! It makes more sense to me now.
 
Does this mean that my harddrive might be bad? So I shouldn't use it anymore and it wont get fixed if i reformat the drive?
 
 

 

[labrat]

Delete

 

[TheKisho]

Quote:

Woaw guys, this really helps! It makes more sense to me now.
 
Does this mean that my harddrive might be bad? So I shouldn't use it anymore and it wont get fixed if i reformat the drive?

I can only tell you a best guess since I don't actually know what's happening with your system.  Are these converted audio files the only thing you've noticed to be damaged so far?  It's possible that your hard drive could be getting flaky.  You can also use SpinRite to map out all the bad sectors but eventually if this is the root of your problems but the rest will fake out eventually causing more data loss (it could be your priceless pictures next).  (Reformatting doesn't map out the bad sectors, and I'm not sure how good chkdsk typically does at telling the file system to avoid these areas (last time I used Chkdsk it made Windows unbootable so I haven't it again).  I'm sure there is other programs cheaper or free that could map out these sectors).
 
So did you listen to the files after you converted them? (All of the ones that now are having problems)?  Were they fine then and perfect without errors?  What is all the programs you use on them since? [Including music playing applications (Some can modify tags, and plugins for them could possibly do other stuff)].  Which program did you use to do the conversions?
 
 
P.S. Is this a laptop?  Laptops drives it's possible to physically damage sectors (irrecoverably), this can cause data loss, corruption, an sometimes slow downs, stalls, system wide crashes and no boot scenarios.
 
P.P.S.  If it turns out that it not worth using and you decide to get rid of it, don't forget to Boot and Nuke it.  Just incase the old lady down the street is a closet hacker.  It's an added level of security as most identity theft still occurs in the real world who's to know what will happen to the drive after it leaves your hands and is sight.
 
When you format the drive make sure you really are reformatting and not just deleting the file table (most of the time when you reformat this is what is actually happing (It'll look like the drive is empty to the operating system but in fact all you data is still there)).  You want to write 0's to every part of the disk.  You can also use the boot and nuke program for the formating stress tests.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

If it was a problem with the hard drive you'd be noticing problems with other files on the hard drive as well.  If it is only AIFF files that are affected then there is something else going on and the hard drive is fine.
 
What is more likely is that you've got a software program that is either incorrectly writing to the AIFF files and corrupting them or is incorrectly reading them and just stops playing the file when it gets too "confused".  Software programs can be buggy.  Buggy software can corrupt files.  Sometimes that type of file corruption can be fixed (recovered) and sometimes it can't.  Depends on how badly the buggy software messed things up.
 
An example would be a program that adds ID3 tags to a FLAC file.  FLAC files aren't supposed to have ID3 tags (they use Vorbis comments).  Some programs, like EAC, can be configured to add ID3 tags to FLAC files.  A FLAC file with ID3 tags is technically corrupted since it is no longer a proper FLAC file.  Some media players will not play those corrupted FLAC files.  The fix is easy in this case, remove the ID3 tags from the file.  A similar thing may have happened to your AIFF files.