Computer is misplacing audio files- should I defragment?

musman wrote on 9/7/2004, 1:18 AM
My computer seems to be losing some audio files (all on the same drive) and I'm wondering if I should defragment the drive. Is this advisable?
Thanks for any help!

ps- If anyone's interested, here is a description of what's happening:

About a month ago I tried to open a Veg file and was greeting by a warning that an audio file couldn't be found. When I do a search for it, Vegas finds it then when it tries to open I get an error message. If I try to open the file with Vegas 4 the result is an immediate crash. If I open with Vegas 5, it gives me the same error message then opens the veg leaving that audio file offline.
Tonight I was greeted by a warning that basically said it could not find a file or something. It was a take of another audio clip in the Veg (made with the Vegas-SF-Vegas shortcut). So, I just created it again as another take in Vegas. Shortly thereafter, I got a different message saying an audio file was missing and do I want to do a search. I did, Vegas found it, and both problems seem okay right now (knock on wood).

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/7/2004, 5:18 AM
I would suggest scandisk, not defrag. You probably have file table pointers that are getting misplaced and a simple scandisk (My Computer / right-mouse-button click drive letter / Properties / Tools / Check Now...) usually fixes most of these problems.

Defragmenting probably won't help any, and if you do have misplaced file pointers then defragging can permanently lose data! Remember, fragmented files are NOT broken files, they are simply in pieces in different areas of the drive, but are still perfectly readable and usable. Defragmenting is almost never necessary or helpful, and can be very dangerous.
johnmeyer wrote on 9/7/2004, 8:01 AM
I agree (as usual) with Chienworks: defrag is almost never necessary. In this case, it very well could be a bad thing to do because it sounds like you have some sort of file corruption. This could be for many different reasons (improper shutdown, crashes, bad software), but one of the causes is a hard disk that is starting to fail. As discussed in Spot's thread about his disk failure, the worst thing you can do with a failing disk is to defrag (because every bit is read, and then written to a new location, thus exposing every file on the disk to possible corruption).

Back up your hard disk, and then try to figure out when the corruption happens (i.e., when you capture, after you save, after you have shut down the computer, etc.).
musman wrote on 9/7/2004, 12:11 PM
Great, things may be starting to fail after only 2 years. ANyway, that you both for the advice.
musman wrote on 9/7/2004, 12:32 PM
When I run scan disk, should I select the boxes "Automatically fix file error" and "Scan for and attempt recovery from bad sectors"?
Thanks again!
Chienworks wrote on 9/7/2004, 12:44 PM
I always run with "automatically fix" turned on. Without it, it may tell you what the errors are, but that doesn't really help solve anything. Bad sectors are probably very unlikely and will slow the process down immensely. After you've got your current problems solved (well, as much as they can be) and backed up your files, you may want to try this some time and let it run overnight.
musman wrote on 9/7/2004, 2:10 PM
Thanks for that. Just gave it a go and opened the veg file. No problems so far. I've never backup a drive before and don't even know what it entails. Guess I need to get a new external drive, but I was hoping to get something good enough for SD or HD. The thought was to have my next film originated short transfered to a hard drive in one of these ofrmats then edit a proxy version. But this is a something for a thread of it's own.
Thanks again!