My collection of drum samples is typically kept inside of one huge rar file on a usb hard drive. Today, I moved that file to my desktop to clear up space on the usb. Well, I got the much dreaded "unexpected end of archive" error...

My precious sample collection had gone from a proud 214 folders to about 100... I was mortified to say the least. Thankfully, I was able to recover the rar file and all of my files are in place. The culprit ended up being one measly wav file that had refused to change its directory from the original location when I was creating a separate sound fx collection rar file. Yet this was not a problem until I copied the file to my desktop--very weird.

After a stressful hour of recovery and hair-pulling, my rar file was successfully recovered and none of my samples were missing. The moral of the story? BACK UP THE STUFF THAT YOU SIMPLY CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT. I am burning discs right now, so that in the future I could only jeopardize the most recent chunk of samples--and not the whole collection.

Please learn from my example. Don't be dumb. Back stuff up. You will love yourself for doing it one day. *yes*

 

... and why did you do that, keep all samples in one rar file ??? ! ???? backup samples in smaller logical parts.

Other thing, RAR, 7zip, ZIP tools have option -t (test), so when you create backup it test archive file, because of situations like that.

 

For quick installs after a pc format. Also, it makes for more easily organized directory structures.

 

Always keep your rar files segregated. For quick installs get your PC setup just the way you want it and make a system image.

 

quite a common problem with USB external hard drive file transfer, especially with large files

 

Ha ha, just learn to play drums.

 

he he

 

Rar archives have this option (if you're using winrar to) "put recovery record" when you make the rar, which means if 4 whatever reason the archive gets corrupted, you can fix a certain % of coruuption. Default is 3%, you can set it from 1% to 10%. The RR ofc, costs space though.

The latest winrar (5) has a new rar format which has a new recovery algo which is more resistant to errors. I thought I may not have to use RAR5 to recover from errors when transmitting over the internets, but it turns out the other day I downloaded a rar from myself that was corrupted in just the right way that it was not able to recover itself.

Also look into .par2 (free, iirc).

 

Just ordered a 3.5" solid state hybrid drive and am in the process of preparing my files for a fresh install on the new sshd (so I am making a new image). Can you recommend anything better for ghosting and creating entire disk image backups than acronis true image? Its ok but it hasnt had the greatest stability in my experience. Thanks in advance. ;)

Thanks, I knew of the existence of recovery records but didnt know how to implement them. Good to know!

 

Your error copy on desktop can be due to long path/long filename. I'm pretty sure if you unpack the same thing, but on C:/ root, you will not get any error

About Acronis, yeah i know the problem. I tried countless other solutions for desktop backup. And no one was convincing.
And as computer tech, i can tell you i pushed them. So i came back to Acronis, but with some subtleties.

My solution, after years of test on the subject : don't backup on USB/Firewire drives, never.

-Use external eSATA or a powered internal rack.
There are countless errors on USB/Firewire drives, due to their buffering, drivers and such. It is a good solution, but not for backups (big files and reliability).

-Use only the final Acronis update from previous version, not the last version full of bugs
Example : don't even touch 2014 version, but use 2013 Build 16.0 - 6514 instead.

The main security still to avoid USB/Firewire for backup, even if a lot of ppl pretend it is the best solution. In fact, it is the worst one ever since floppies

 

I'll also take this opportunity to say that repairing rars with RR is not an automatic process (it's manual), but it should be rather quick/painless depending.

 

Absolutely Pipotron3000 that's a good point. In some cases I make a short folder name in the root to get around the filename length issues when extracting.

 

man with all this backup needing to be done, I'm surprised they still haven't invented a device that enables us to backup data into our arseholes...there's plenny of space there, and crack and crystal meth smugglers haven't had a problem shitting out drugs and selling them...