I have been ripping for 12 years.  I have used Napster only when 400
mp3's was allot.  I was never comfortable DL'ing tracks so I have
about 2500 CDs and about 80% are on my sytem.  From time to time I
notice that some tracks are missing.

WHY?????

I ripped them, tagged them, loved them, what gives?
There will be for example, an album with only track 2,3,5,7,8,9,13,15
on the HD.  All were there originally and tagged and listened to for
some time.  Sometimes it's as bad as tracks 3, 5 10
only.......sometimes all tracks from an album are gone.  Only the
folder structure remains.

Help me stop this loss please!  I am not doing anything illegal!


Please help...

---

Request for Question Clarification by livioflores-ga on 21 Apr 2006 23:53 PDT

Hi!!

Do the following tasks to know if you have some pest doing that:
First thing to do:
Scan your computer online with the following tools from Trend Micro:
(do all the tasks: virus scan and download CWShredder to
remove CoolWebSearch, this is a common pestware that is usually
present on infected computers). Let these tools remove all that they
find.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/


Second thing to do:
Scan your computer for spyware at Ewido, if you receive a warning
about the installation of an ActiveX object, just let it be installed
and run.
http://www.ewido.net/en/onlinescan


NOTE: if for any reason you cannot perform one of the above tasks just
skip it and continue with the below one.

Third thing to do:
Download and run the following HijackThis autoinstall program. HJT
needs to be in its own folder so that the program itself isn't deleted
by accident. Having the backups could be VITAL to restoring your
system if something went wrong in the FIX process!
http://thespykiller.co.uk/files/HJTsetup.exe

Hijackthis is an expert's tool used to remove hijackers and spyware,
but since it works on demand, not automatically, you only need to post
a log here as a clarification and then I will analyze it and tell you
what are the next steps.
To see how to get and post a log here see the following tutorial at
BleepingComputer.com; you will only need to post the log without
fixing anything, if necessary, I will tell you which items must be selected to fix:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/index.php?showtutorial=42#HowToUse

Note that on Windows NT, 2000, & XP, it requires that you have
administrator privileges.

Please post the scan log from HijackThis' scan, WITHOUT fixing
anything, and after I analyze it I will tell you what things must be
fixed with HJT. Also let me know what happened with the online scans.
Probably other procedures and products could be necessary to complete
the cleaning.

Regards,
livioflores-ga

Dear manitoucole,


Based on the symptoms you describe, I consider it most likely that
your file system is being gradually corrupted. My studies in computer
science and my experience in owning and operating multiple servers with
many hard drives lead me to this conclusion. Gradual data corruption is
rarely caused by software errors, since file systems are among the most
heavily tested and best understood software. There is a chance that some
malicious software is deliberately corrupting your hard disk, although it
is rare for viruses and other malware to delete files in such a sporadic
manner. Nonetheless, it is worth conducting a thorough malware check,
if only to rule out this possibility.

Instead of using one of the online antivirus diagnostics, which are
sharply limited in the extent of their analysis due to security and
bandwidth constraints, I recommend that you download and install a
reputable antivirus package. For example, you can obtain free trial
versions of McAfee AntiSpyware and McAfee VirusScan from the following
page.

McAfee: free trial software
http://download.mcafee.com/us/eval/evaluate2.asp


You can also try the combination of ClamWin and Winpooch, a pair of
highly regarded open-source solutions for detecting and eliminating
malware. Install ClamWin first, then install Winpooch on top of it.

ClamWin: Download
http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/18/46/

Winpooch Watchdog: Download
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=122629


If your operating system is free of malware, you can assume that your
data corruption is caused by faulty hardware. In particular, gradual
deterioration in the media or mechanism of your hard drive may very
well be causing the file system to lose pointers to your music files,
even if the actual data is still preserved on the disk. There would be
nothing unusual about this.

High-density data storage is a difficult task, and hard drives are
delicate devices that need to be new in order to perform reliably at the
cutting edge of this task. In fact, every hard disk loses a certain amount
of data that is recovered on the fly by error-correction algorithms built
into the disk's firmware. Eventually, the rate of data loss becomes so
high that errors cannot be corrected, and you begin to see damaged or
missing files. In my experience, this is bound to happen after three or
four years with budget-priced high-capacity hard drives.

If your hard drive is indeed failing, you would do best to buy a new
one and transfer all your files. But first, you should diagnose the
problem and try to repair and retrieve the damaged parts of your file
system. The diagnosis and temporary repair can often be carried out
with a disk diagnostic tool distributed by the manufacturer. Find out
the make and model of your hard disk, either by using your operating
system's control panel or by opening the computer case and reading the
label on the disk. Then go to the manufacturer's website and download
their free diagnostic software, which is usually provided in the form 
of a floppy image or CD-ROM image. I list below the diagnostic download
pages for three of the biggest hard-drive manufacturers.

Seagate: SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Western Digital Service and Support: Data Lifeguard
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Maxtor: Software Download: PowerMax
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=%2Fen_us%2FSupport%2FSoftware%20Downloads%2FAll%20Downloads&downloadID=22


If your manufacturer's diagnostic tool finds and perhaps repairs a
hard-disk problem, you should immediately copy your files to a fresh
disk. Use the faulty disk only for nonessential and frequently backed-up
data, or just throw it out.

If you manage to diagnose hardware failure but are unable to retrieve
the missing files using free software, I recommend that you try Gibson
Research Corporation's SpinRite. Don't be put off by the garish design
of the Gibson website. Rest assured that SpinRite is a rock-solid piece
of software that is authored by a brilliant and honest computer engineer,
namely Steve Gibson, and it can perform marvelous feats of data recovery
on damaged hard disks. The purchase price of $89 is fully refundable
within 30 days if you are unhappy with SpinRite.

Gibson Research: SpinRite 6.0: Overview
http://grc.com/sroverview.htm


I know from personal experience that data loss is deeply unpleasant,
and the insidiously creeping variety is especially unnerving. It can
take a while to accept the fact that computer hardware is imperfect
stuff that quietly but certainly wears out over time.

I wish you all the best with this problem, and I hope for a swift and
satisfying resolution. If you have any concerns about the completeness or
accuracy of my answer, please advise me through a Clarification Request
and give me a chance to fully meet your needs before you assign a rating.

Regards,

leapinglizard


file system corruption
://www.google.com/search?hs=IGF&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=file+system+corruption&btnG=Search

hard disk corruption
://www.google.com/search?q=hard+disk+corruption&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

seagate disk tool
://www.google.com/search?q=seagate+disk+tool&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

western digital disk tool
://www.google.com/search?hs=CHF&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=western+digital+disk+tool&btnG=Search

maxtor disk tool
://www.google.com/search?hs=7bu&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=maxtor+disk+tool&btnG=Search

First off, do a full virus scan, spyware scan, and adware scan. Make
sure that there's no malacious program on your computer that's
deleting random files.

Also take note of what programs you use to open your audio files with.
Some programs will try to move your music for you, or rearrange it in
real obscure ways. This might be why they seem like they're missing.

You might also want to do a search on your computer to find specific
songs. Depending on the way you have your system set up, the "Search"
option might be in your start menu. It might be elsewhere.

Be sure that you're using well-trusted software to play your music
with. Windows Media Player is decent. Winamp is (in my opinion)
better. iTunes can be goofy sometimes, and other players like
MusicMatch can be downright quirky and move files around to "make them
easier to locate". Har har.

Anyway, hope this is helpful to you. If the files are actually deleted
completely from your system, then there's no way to recover them,
other than to rip them or download them again.

Maby your files are moved when they are opened in another audio
player. When I ripp CD's I use windows media player. In I-Tunes there
is a setting so that whenever you open an mp3 in Itunes it is added to
the itunes librey and when an mp3 is added to the librey database, the
file is also moved to the ITunes directory. Have you tried searching
for them? Maby they have just moved.