Batteries died, lost recording, how can I recover?

[JEGG]

Originally Posted by apeak

Deviating just a little -

The mics on the Zooms are XY but the Tascams are spaced a couple of inches apart and face out 180 degrees.

On the DR-100, the cardioid mic's appear to point straight ahead. Inside the cosmetic capsule housing, however, one can see that the capsules are at a 45 degree angle. So the point is, things aren't always pointed where they appear to be.

I'd be interested in knowing if the capsules really point at 180 degrees in the example above, or are the capsules at 45 degrees or so inside the housing that points at 180?

At any rate, I wouldn't worry too much about cancellation. It won't be perfect, of course, but at these distances between capsules not too much can go wrong (other than timbre, if the cards are really at 180). ORTF and NOS are much further apart, and they do OK at mono. 180 degrees is fine with cardioids, it's the distance between the capsules that will primarily affect cancellation.

[Matti]

Not my idea originally ( using dslr as a reader ), but you should try many ways to get to the files

Matti

[sidewalkmantra]

well did anyone find a solve that works? I've got the same problem here, though I can see the files and see how big they are but nothing will play them (yet)- I need this audio!

[Roland]

I've just quickly scanned the replies left here and would just like to add my thoughts. As far as I am aware, Wav files that get cut off by a power failure are generally recoverable.

I had a wav that was lost due to someone turning off the mains in the building. It was on a Pyramix system, recording to wav as the case happened. When I discussed with the Pyramix technical guys they led me to believe that when a wav is recorded there is initially a header, followed by the raw data, followed by a footer. When the recording is interupted by a power "loss" all that is lost is the footer, so a piece of software that is able to read the head and the data and then create a footer will get the data back.

If no original header was recorded, it may well be impossible to recover the data, however, this should not be the case. The file may be labelled with an alpha numeric designation for recording purposes, so you might have to search through a lot of names, however, it should, technically be possible.

[Robo]

Yes it should be there. Whatever you do just do not give up and use the SD card for something else. Keep the SD card unchanged until you can figure out a way to get the audio off. I sat on some lost recordings on a drive and successfully recovered them after 6 years, just because I tried enough different things or figured out what was the problem. I think the problem you have is with the recovery software you're using not being robust enough, or the file is disguised as something with no file extension etc and you could easily miss it. Check for files with sizes around what it should be for 40 minutes @ 24 bit 96kHz or whatever it was. I've used EasyRecovery Professional for many years and it has recovered plenty of lost data for me. There are a few different scanning algorithms.

When you've got the file, the easy bit is then taking the file and opening it as a RAW file (Adobe Audition/Cool Edit Pro/Wave Editor/Sample Manager) to reconstruct the waveform, header and footer. As long as you can get the file in the first place, you should be safe.

Cheers

[boojum]

Free: PhotoRec - CGSecurity

It works.

Try it.

What have you to lose??

[Bibster]

Originally Posted by Roland

When I discussed with the Pyramix technical guys they led me to believe that when a wav is recorded there is initially a header, followed by the raw data, followed by a footer.

I just looked the WAVE file format up here and what I quickly derive, is that there is no footer.

Most of the time, there is just a fmt-chunk which specifies the format (format (mostly PCM), channels, sample rate etc.) and than the PCM data-chunks.

So, get rid of the first fmt-chunk, and use the rest of the file as a raw PCM file.

Paul

[earsinthewoods]

I find for long term recording use an external battery eg( Yuasa 12V 7Ah via 12V-5V power lead as used in the car,The tascam will run 12hrs nonstop,although take several SD cards with you

[Emmawino]

Since so many give you suggestions, I think your problem must have been solved. Anyway I still want to say if you didn't find the best solution yet, and if you encounter the same problem again, try EaseUS Mac Data Recovery Wizard, it also has edition for Windows.

[studer58]

I just received this today, as part of advertising from Studiospares in London, UK. Don't know if the fix applies to other Zoom products, but this strikes me as able to inspire some hope...perhaps ?

The popular Zoom H1 has been updated to v2.00 with the following fixes and improvements:


1. Added USB Audio Interface function.
2. The starting time is shortened.
3. Added the File Recovery function that restores broken data
caused by power-off while recording.
4. Skip date/time setting menu after 10 seconds with no operation.
5. H1 freezes at the end of a recording in MP3 format in rare cases.
6. Some PC software can not recognize the mark created by H1.

Follow the link below to download and install the update.
H1 | ZOOM

[Jim Williams]

Recovery will take time. You have already suffered a lot from this experience.

I suggest a support group like Recordists Anomonous.

[aumeta]

I encountered this problem recently when an SD card was pulled out of an H4N whilst it had been left paused on a recording. After no luck with data recovery tools I hit upon this solution-

1. Do a raw copy of the entire SD card, including "empty space"- this should generate a file as large as the disk
(e.g. HDDGURU: HDD Raw Copy Tool)

2. Open this file as Raw data in a wave editor (I used Adobe Audition) and ensure you set the sample rate, bit depth and channel count correctly (in Audition I also had to play with the byte offset and the type of PCM encoding to get a perfect interpretation).

Then, if you're as lucky as I was, somewhere in this long file should be the recording you're looking for. Mine came out perfectly continuous without any artefacts.

Best of luck!

[2manyrocks]

Sometimes you can find a file with Linux that you just can't seem to find with Windows. You can get it on a USB stick from On-Disk.com
to have around to try when all else fails.

The reason I suggest getting it on a USB stick is so you can boot your PC from the USB without having to install Linux permanently.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by Jim Williams

Recovery will take time. You have already suffered a lot from this experience.

I suggest a support group like Recordists Anomonous.

I have been to those meetings, and you're not kidding, everyone wears little Zorro masks.