Ripped surround music... gone?

[Blackwood]

With the help of some QQ members, I managed to get a Mac Mini media server working that allows me to listen to downloaded/ripped surround music on my receiver. Heights don’t work, apparently because Apple likes to piss users off users doesn’t allow it, but 7.1 is a good start.

So a couple of weeks ago, now that I have a way of playing digital surround music, I started the long process of using MakeMKV to rip my surround Blu-rays and DVDs to a SanDisk 4TB external drive. I have about 150 discs of studio albums and had ripped 100. (I was in the Ts with Tangerine Dream today.)

However, the drive apparently died, or lost an important “bit” of info, or is trying to tell me to get a life that involves being away from the computer.

Being too trusting, I hadn’t actually transferred the ripped files to my Mini, so I could be hosed. I’ve downloaded the free version of Disk Drill and it looks like it still sees file that it might be able to recover, but it’s taken over an hour just to be 6% complete, so this could be a while. Maybe I’ll get most/all info back, or maybe I’ll have to relive the past two weeks and start over from scratch.

On the positive side, I’m listening to the new Atmos version of Signals and it’s really good. I look forward to it being in an anniversary box set so I can rip it and immediately put it on the server that has a back-up drive attached... which is what I should have done from the start. Only myself to blame.

 

[HomerJAU]

What are you using to rip your discs, a PC or Mac?

Where did you rip to, external usb drive or internal hard drive?

 

[HomerJAU]

Not sure why you went with a Mac Mini as a music server. You could have bought a (much cheaper) media player to do same and get Atmos and 4K Video etc since your AVR has HDMI and an Atmos decoder.

 

[Blackwood]

I’m ripping on my Mac Studio. It saves on the Studio, then I put the files on the the external SanDisk and delete it from the Studio. I was going to then transfer to the Mini all at once and still keep the files on the SanDisk as a backup. I believe I’ll now refer to that idea as a failure.

What I’ll do going forward is continue to rip on the Studio, then directly transfer the files to the Mini which already has a Time Machine back-up on it. I won’t use a SanDisc has a middle-man.

The reason I’m using a Mac Mini as a server is because that was freed up when I bought the Studio for Christmas. I’m not opposed to a media player, but there was no reason to buy one initially when I now had an unused Mini sitting around.

Any media player you’d recommend if I get to that point?

 

[sjcorne]

The reason I’m using a Mac Mini as a server is because that was freed up when I bought the Studio for Christmas. I’m not opposed to a media player, but there was no reason to buy one initially when I now had an unused Mini sitting around.

It's also handy being able to play Apple Music straight off the Mac Mini.

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

Oof, sorry to hear that.

You could boot to a recovery suite like UBCD and run PhotoRec... but if you've still got the originals, it's probably better to re-do the rips, as you might be demoing for a friend and only then find corrupted data on a song.

A mechanical drive really wouldn't be a bottleneck on a streaming music server, if you're going to replace that Sandisk with something else. I stream 24/96 FLAC files off a 5400RPM laptop drive at this point, plugged into my Plex/Win 10 file server without any issues, though as always your mileage may vary.

 

[Blackwood]

A mechanical drive really wouldn't be a bottleneck on a streaming music server, if you're going to replace that Sandisk with something else.

My intent was never to run the music off the SanDisk. It was just a convenient storage spot as I spent time cleaning off the Mac Mini which was used for my business, and confirming the Studio was going to be OK as my new business machine. Then the SanDisk could still serve as a back-up after things got transferred. Turns out I gambled a bit and lost.

You make a good point about any recovery possibly not being perfect. We’ll have to see what Disk Drill is able to do.

To add just a bit of info for the failed SanDisk for anyone who cares, Disk Utility on the Mac shows the disk as completely full. It wasn’t even close to half-way with data when it futzed out. The Disk Repair tool shows that nothing is wrong, but it won’t Mount.

Annoying, but as this is currently the worst problem I have in life, I can’t complain all too much about it. I could tell my wife about it, but she wouldn’t feel the pain like folks here might.

 

[sjcorne]

Heights don’t work, apparently because Apple likes to piss users off users doesn’t allow it, but 7.1 is a good start.

They’ll let you send audio to the heights, just not over HDMI. You just need a USB interface with the necessary amount of line outputs, or you could combine a 7.1 HDMI device with a smaller USB device within the Audio MIDI Setup to form an “aggregate” audio output.

 

[Blackwood]

They’ll let you send audio to the heights, just not over HDMI. You just need a USB interface with the necessary amount of line outputs, or you could combine a 7.1 HDMI device with a smaller USB device within the Audio MIDI Setup to form an “aggregate” audio output.

Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate that.

 

[MidiMagic]

Why did you delete before you backed up the copies?

If you copy a large amount of data that replaces files, the disk could become full because it does not delete the old copies until the new copies are done.

 

[Blackwood]

Why did you delete before you backed up the copies?

If you copy a large amount of data that replaces files, the disk could become full because it does not delete the old copies until the new copies are done.

Sorry if I made it more confusing than it needed to be. (Or if I make it even more confusing now...)

I ripped the discs to one computer, moved the files to a brand new external SSD, then immediately erased them from the computer I ripped to. (Big mistake.) There was nothing deleted on the SSD and being brand new it had plenty of space for the files that were there. Why it reports as being full all of the sudden is anyone’s guess. Wasn’t even close to full.

I also had a couple of earlier experiences when the SSD would disconnect/reconnect when plugged into the computer. That should have tipped me off that something was wrong. (Also big mistake.)

The intent was to then take the files on the SSD and put them on the older computer that would be my server after I finished cleaning off a lot of unneeded files which I hadn’t had a chance to do yet.

Oh well. This is all on me. I used to work in the computer industry, so I know better and got what I deserved for being sloppy.

Disk Drill says it can get back almost 1TB of data on the SSD... if I pay for the full program. (I was using the free download they offer just to try it out.) Probably not a bad idea to have a program like that. Used to have DiskWarrior and other products on hand all the time, but got away from it after years of no problems.

The one truly unfortunate thing for me is that my trust in a SanDisk Extreme dropped. I swore by these things and now I’m a little leery of trusting this one in the future which is a pain as they’re not cheap. Certainly it’s the exception in my overall experience, but makes me a bit more cautious.

 

[atrocity]

but if you've still got the originals, it's probably better to re-do the rips, as you might be demoing for a friend and only then find corrupted data on a song.

I'm not sure if this is helpful in the OP's case, but if any of the music is being stored as FLAC, it's possible to check quickly for corruption without having to listen in real time by running:

flac -t *.flac

 

[Blackwood]

I'm not sure if this is helpful in the OP's case, but if any of the music is being stored as FLAC, it's possible to check quickly for corruption without having to listen in real time by running:

flac -t *.flac

Thanks. It’s MKV files, but I’ve got plenty of FLACs in general and that’s a cool thing to know about.

 

[Blackwood]

I’ll put a bow on this... if for nothing else as a PSA for being careful about back-ups. (Adding to the others I’ve seen here.)

Disk Drill did do a good job of recovering a load of stuff. Very little was tagged as Deleted or Lost.

It was not an exact recreation of what was on the drive, though. Lots of MKV files, but all named sequentially without any folder structure from the original disk. So, file000000.mkv through file000339.mkv basically.

I did smile when I threw all the files into VLC. There was metadata in some of those MKV files that VLC could read. The best tagged files? The two albums I downloaded from IAA. (See attachment.)

I toyed with the idea of going through all the files and renaming them, but it took less than five minutes before I hit an issue that @somethingcleveridunno mentioned... corrupted files. I was playing Tales... by Alan Parsons Project and it was very clearly corrupted about 20 minutes in.

So, I’ll be starting over... much smarter about how I do it, and even more at one with MakeMKV which I now feel I know like the back of my hand.

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

They’ll let you send audio to the heights, just not over HDMI. You just need a USB interface with the necessary amount of line outputs, or you could combine a 7.1 HDMI device with a smaller USB device within the Audio MIDI Setup to form an “aggregate” audio output.

Jeez. This is why I'm trying to go more and more open-source with my gear.

 

[sjcorne]

The best tagged files? The two albums I downloaded from IAA. (See attachment.)

Glad to see someone appreciates my tags