Virus - Audio files turn scratchy

[Michael Khan]

Probably 6 days ago, some of my audio files became scratchy and skippy on my external hard drive. I didn't drop it, and it's not my sound card drivers.. Every computer that I plug my external in, some of my mp3's and wav files aren't perfect like they used to be. Is it a virus that corrupted them?

P.S. I just realized it didn't have to do anything with my Windows 7 upgrade.

 

[Petey7]

It is not a virus. The files became corrupted some other way. Sounds like you might be getting bad sectors or some other issue with your external drive. Some times this just happens on its own. If you can provide us with the make and model of your external drive, I will see if I can find a hardware diagnostics test made by the manufacturer. Test from the manufacturer tend to do better than windows' check disk and most third party software in my experience.

 

[Michael Khan]

It's a 1TB Seagate Freeagent. http://livin.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/313khzct2zl.jpg I already tested it with the provided diagnostic test, chkdsk, and a seagate testing program from their site and nothing was wrong with it... and bummer, it just happens for no reason..?

 

[Petey7]

Not sure what you mean by "it". What I meant was that HDD eventually fail on there own. When it happens in a short period time, it is a little unusual, and often their is no known reason. I have a similar drive, but its silver instead of black. Did yours come with a power adapter with a removable plug? If so, you should automatically know what I mean. Make sure that the plug is on all the way. You can try using a different USB cord if you have one available. I don't think that data drives can become fragmented but I don't see any reason why you can't check to make sure. Also, mine gets pretty hot if i leave it on for more than 30 minutes. I've been using a household fan to keep it cool. Don't know if it might be related, but I thought i'd pass that little tip along.

 

[steve-pressman]

Did you try copying a few files on to your main drive and seeing if they still play wrongly ?

That would be my first test if they play fine then you know it is not the files themselves but a disk problem.


Steve

 

[Michael Khan]

I mean "it" as in what you said about HD's failing on it's own... and yeah I checked a lot of those that you said..... It was like a quick corruption, it's hard to trace such an odd problem.. And about copying the audio files, yeah. I moved them to other drives as well as putting some on my blackberry to listen to and it's still there... I'm curious as to why it's only my audio files though.. I make music and even my project files opened up with tracks that have clicks and pops.. I hope it's not with all of my songs...

 

[Petey7]

I've read plenty of reviews about hardware failure with these drives, which I believe stem from the heat problem I mentioned earlier. Beyond that I can't really think of anything. Might be time to look into your warranty info. Mine has a 5 year warranty, but Seagate seems to use a different time frame for each model hard drive.