What would you do? Long but need advice

[Nzoner]

Computer got a virus so I get ahold of a local computer company and they look at it and tell me they can help etc.NOW I ask the geek up front(this same company lost $50 of my music 3 years ago when they transferred my stuff to new computer and never would own up to it) can you save my music?

I have 5500+ tunes and I'm explaining to the geek that I need to know I can trust them.He ASSURES me that it will be no problem.So I get my computer back Tuesday and what do you know 1 music folder that had all of my music has been turned into 3 and after searching I find I'm missing my entire Queen collection about 150 songs as well as other artists.

I take computer back and trying to be as polite as possible ask wtf happened.Geek tells me he transferred everything to one of their puters wiped mine and then reloaded mine and something must've happened,no shit I think.

So they have it one more day and when I pick up geek tells me he found a folder with a lot of Queen etc in it and I'm good to go.So I get home and start looking and now I have like 6 folders with music but still missing some artists and I've yet to really get into knowing just how much music I may be missing because shit is filed here and there and everywhere but when doing a full music search from some of the bands I'm seeing that I now have 2 and 3 copies of quite a few songs.

Okay I'm not a computer geek but I'd like someone to explain to me how all my music was in one folder and now it's focking everywhere,oh and that $50 worth of music the company didn't take responsibility for,I found 12 of the songs during my search but they're in an OMA format and cannot be recognized my WMP,so that music was there all along but lost to me during the transfer 3 years ago.

Thanks,if you made it this far,but I could use some advice,do I just write this off as me being the dumbass or do I make yet another trip and talk to the owner and see if anything else can be done?And I'm sorry I don't mean to rude in using the word geek but this guy that worked on my puter is the pure definition of the word and has me wondering if he's possibly too smart for his own good thus thinking he could do anything and giving me assurances he never should have.

[Fritz88]

Originally Posted by Nzoner

Thanks,if you made it this far,but I could use some advice,do I just write this off as me being the dumbass or do I make yet another trip and talk to the owner and see if anything else can be done?And I'm sorry I don't mean to rude in using the word geek but this guy that worked on my puter is the pure definition of the word and has me wondering if he's possibly too smart for his own good thus thinking he could do anything and giving me assurances he never should have.

I have not read all the replies but someone might have covered what I am going to say here:

Go back and ask them to recover every single file. If they reformatted your hard drive, there's a chance that they can recover your data.

I assume that they wiped out your drive (did not over write anything over it) then fixed your issue. Once you returned the computer to them, they realized that they screwed things up and need to recover files.

When you perform data recovery, sometimes you get your original formatting of your files. That is, you might have saved them in several folders when you first put the music in your pc. They might have been in different format, etc. So once they are recovered they come in similar format.

When you go back, make sure that you explain to his superiors that he promised not to mess your music collection up but he did and you demand recompensation whether that in money (for the tunes you paid to get) or some other method.

Finally, next time you have such valuable collections, make sure you have an external hard drive that can carry your important files . Hard drives are meant to die one day, so even if none of that debacle happened, you were going to lose them if you did not back them up. I believe prices are kind of low now, so go ahead and buy one. Here's listing of 500 GB external hard drives in Amazon.com

[BigRedChief]

Joe, agree with most here. They are idiots. No way should you have multiple foders and different formats now. Yes, The shortcuts idea and saved in different formats is feasible but highly doubtful.

They defintely did "something" wrong. To wipe a HD witout a confirmed quality backup in place violates a bunch of best practice policies.

Defintely get yourself a USB external HD and save your music there. It's a low tech solution that anyone can do. Just plug it in and save stuff there.

[Nzoner]

Originally Posted by malachi47000

Never posted but wanted you to know that I am a computer tech and whenever we have to clean the hard drive (reload the OS), we do a ghost copy of your hard drive (copy and replace all documents including music, photo's etc) before we wipe it. After reloading the hard drive we copy all the documents (no programs however) back over to the computer and keep all information for the customer for at least a week. Sounds like the company you are using is kind of shady. Also sounds like the tech is just recopying your user document folder over and over (reason for multiple copies of songs). The previous posts that talk about keeping inventories of all music purchased through amazon and itunes are true. Under these kinds of situations they will replace your music once for free. I would advise to get an extra hard drive (internal or external) and use that for storing all your important documents (i.e. music, photo's, papers etc) on it. You can buy a large hard drive (320+ GB) for fairly cheap nowadays. Try www.newegg.com. DONT store it on cd/dvd's however since they wear over time and are easily scratched. Flash drives are also a good idea but usually are small (2 GB range) and can't hold a lot. Also there are other ways to getting your music back and if you send me a message sometime I will help you with a couple ways to re-download them.

Thanks to everyone for all the input,I've printed this thread and will be taking it with me.


As for the suggestions on an external hard drive I now own one that holds up to 640 GB and will be putting it to use as soon as I get this mess cleared up.