Reconversion (Music_Shell folder stats)

For information about the CD to MP3 conversion that began on 6/5/2016, go to this awesome page.

As promised, I've redesigned this page to make it easier to read. I moved the data into a table and no longer is it necessary to use a string of asterisks to tie the number at the top of the page with my notes at the bottom of the page. The purpose of this page does remain the same. Rather than fill up random blog posts with the number of music files in my music directory, I'm going to simply put those numbers on this single page. I still run a DOS batch file that runs DIR commands on my music_shell folder, but while I previously tried to keep music I got from youtube.com, my original conversion, and then the reconversion, all of my files are under a single "music" folder. The DOS batch file creates a directory for the day I'm running it and create .txt files for the different directories within that directory structure. I use this methodology to track my progress over time, posting stats twice a month - once with a total for MM/01/CCYY - MM/15/CCYY and once with a total for MM/16/CCYY - MM/31/CCYY (or whatever the last day of the month is for the month). Doing so is going to be less chaotic.It also ties in with the idea of writing meaningful blog posts.

Start Date End Date Number Notes
20160516 20160531 NN,NNN Today is actually Friday, May 20th.
  • I detailed in this post the result of Gillware's evaluation of my EHD.
  • I detailed in this post the next step I am taking to recover the EHD.
Obviously, I can't know how all of this is going to turn out. I am hopeful and guardedly optimistic, that Drive Savers Data Recovery will be successful - I hope they do, but I'm uncertain they will. In the meantime, I am going to continue the consolidation of the files I do have and hope for the best.
20160501 20160515 200887 The EHD is going to be looked at by Gillware. I hope to receive good news prior to May 31, 2016. If I don't, I will need to seriously consider how to approach the re-re-conversion of my 4000 CDs, including whether I add more to this existing page or if I make a "cut" and begin a new page. These are considerations I will not have to think about if Gillware is successful in the recovery of my EHD.
20160416 20160430 200887 The numbers are staggering. No, I cannot access any of the files in my music collection. I've done the following:
  1. Asked a co-worker if he was good with data recovery. Receiving an affirmative answer, I gave him my EHD so he could try to get my files back. His scan ran for 24+ hours and was unsuccessful.
  2. I took the EHD to Benn at http://www.ewisecomputer.com/, a computer business that advertised data recovery as a service. It is located in his house over by Kirkwood Avenue in Iowa City. I left work at noon on a Monday during my lunch break and gave him the EHD to work on. He kept the EHD overnight and told me the next day that his efforts were unsuccessful. When I picked up the EHD from him on Wednesday, Benn gave me a nice shipping box that he said I could use to send it away to a data recovery firm.
  3. I made contact with Gillware, a data recovery firm in Madison, WI. I've explained my situation to Justin, a customer support representative, and based upon our phone conversation on 4/25, he stated that he was confident Gillware would be able to recover the files on the EHD.
That's great / awesome news, right? It should be simple - send the EHD to Justin in Madison, WI, and pay Gillware to recover my files. Key word: pay. Authorizing Gillware to recover the files will cost an unknown dollar amount and it's fair to say the unknown is what is scary. In order to hear every second of the music in my collection, I'd need to let my music player run for 2.43 years. I have a lot of music files:
20160401 20160415 849 It's been dark, dark, and DARK for my music collection ...
20160316 20160331 849 See these posts: Part One and Part Two, plus a special epilogue.
20160301 20160315 1000,000 First, the AWESOME news - I was hired on Tuesday, March 8, 2016! I will begin the next step in my career at the University of Iowa as a Senior Technical Writer in the Health Care Information Systems (HCIS) department in a building that is, literally, 5 minutes from our house. I am so excited! I begin on Monday, March 28th - I passed their background check so it's all good. To celebrate, I purchased a 4 TB My Book external hard drive @ Best Buy on 3/15/2016. It was $70 off and I will use the $100 I received as a Christmas present from Lou & Jean towards it, which means it was actually only $32 (and change). I put 100,000 as the total for this line in the table because I am in the middle of copying all the files from the individual hard drives to the new drive.
20160216 20160229 98423 This command - G:\foldered\dir *.mp3 *.wav *.wma /s - gave me a total of 98423 files. I know there are a bunch of duplicates, but, eh, it's Leap Day, February 29, 2016! I hope 2/29/2020 goes a lot better than tonight. Taxes 2016. On the job front, I did awesome last week during a second interview at a company for a position I really REALLY want to be hired for. I have a good feeling about how I sold myself. I hope it comes to fruition.
20160201 20160215 100297
Well, that's a little more reasonable. I ran a DOS batch file to get this number. The batch file did the following:
  1. copy all of the duplicates in the g:\foldered directory to a different drive
  2. delete all the duplicate files in the g:\foldered directory
Since I ran that DOS batch file, I know some straggler duplicate files emerged so 100297 includes some duplicates that will be adjusted in the 2/29 number.Yes, 2/29/2016 will be the next date - it is leap year. Some progress on the job front. I have some prospects in-progress, but it would sure be awesome to receive a job offer and sign on the dotted line prior to 2/29/2016. If forced to guess, I'd guess I have a 33% probability of that happening.
20160116 20160131 152085 This number is so totally out of whack. Its usefulness is solely so that I have a number in this row on this page for the time between the date in the Start Date and End Date columns. That's it. It should bear no other purpose now or in the future, if I happen to look at this row. I took this number from the file named 2016_01_31_mostrecentcount_music_G_Drive.txt. In this file, there are 152515 files total and of those, 430 files exist in the Recycle Bin. I hope to have a more reasonable number by 2/15/2016. And a job. For the record, I was laid off on 1/26/2016. I have until 4/22 to find a job.
20160101 20160115 88605 In my g:\foldered directory, there are 88605 files, including 651 duplicates. In my g:\notfoldered directory, there are 6117 files, including 4044 duplicates.
20151215 20151231 107939
Are you nuts?!? How on earth did you drop 14,844 files in 15 days?!? For future reference, I am using the YYYY_MM_DD_musicfiles_g_drive.txt file to come up with this number. I don't care if I wasn't using that file in the past or not. I created two new sub-folders:
  1. G:\Music_Shell\____Foldered
  2. G:\Music_Shell\____NotFoldered
The objective of doing this was to systematically apply file properties to each music file in the "NotFoldered" folder and eliminate duplicates. There are duplicates: 1 *(5).* file 1 *(4).* file 41 *(3).* files 1328 *(2).* files So, of the 5364 TOTAL files, there are 3993 duplicates that are likely to be removed. Over in the "Foldered" there's 102010 files & of those files, there are 12232 files that have (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), or (9) in the file name and 266 that have (10), (11), (12), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17), (18), or (19). There are a whopping 82 files that indicate they are the 20th - 29th copy of the file. These will be easy to eliminate so I expect another significant drop between the 20151231 number and the 20160115 number.
20151201 20151215 122783 I suppose having 5689 fewer than the previous row is a step in the right direction. After all, it shows some progress. Roughly, based upon what I see as a result of my DOS batch file output, there are a potential 24162 more files to eliminate. That would bring me down to 98621, which would show a net increase in my music collection of 121 from the 20151115 row below.
20151115 20151201 128472 Having 29730 more files than the previous row is notsomething to celebrate. I realize that when I restarted this conversion on 12/1/2013, I honestly thought I would be done with it by now. In fact, having 128472 music files as the total in my MS DOS batch file simply points out there is a time deficit when it comes to filtering out duplicates and the utter chaos in my life.
  • On 11/23/2015, upon my return from NCYC 2015 in Indy with Alex, there was an email from my employer's CEO about the pending layoffs and restructuring that would be coming.
  • On 11/24/2015, at a company-wide meeting, there was zero assurances about the longevity of my job as a Senior Technical Writer.
  • Without going into specifics, I am keeping my eye on some options.
I'm unsure what will happen - whether I will be able to stay where I am (hopefully!!) or if my position will be one that is eliminated. When I return on 12/15/2015 to update this page, it will be the eve prior to a department meeting that the VP of our area has scheduled. I hope I am able to attend that meeting, but my stomach gets into knots when I think about the possibility that I won't be employed where I am today on 12/15/2015... It's an icky feeling.
20151101 20151115 98742 I am unsure whether this number is accurate as I still have a lot of manual cleanup to do. For example, here are two files in a single directory. 06/19/2015 11:36 AM 10,291,01210_True to Your Heart_98 Degrees_98 Degrees and Rising.mp3 08/25/2015 07:56 PM 10,291,01210_True to Your Heart_98ø_98ø and Rising.mp3They have different date and time stamps, but the files are the same size & named differently. This specific directory has 26 files. Thirteen of the files were created on 8/25/2015 and 13 of the files were created on 6/19/2015. It is unknown and indeterminable how many other directories have duplicate files as far as size, but do not have (2) in the file name and, because of that, they are not easily identified. Thus, this project trudges onward.
20151016 20151031 161284 During the weekend of October 10th, I purchased a 2 TB external hard drive for $60. This was done through the Waterloo Craigslist. Steve, who is Susie's brother, actually did the transaction in Waverly for me & I left $60 with Susie. The work of consolidating all the music across my personal MyCloud at home and then eliminating duplicate files has been and continues to be an enormous challenge. The largest aspect of this challenge is that I am constantly finding sub-folders under sub-folders with music files that were created by Alex & Megan. I can't count the number of times I've seen folders that are full of Green Day tunes and the Aladdin soundtrack. The number of files in the music directory is 161284 & the number of duplicate files is an astounding 124018. I know there is something goofy with those numbers because I can't believe I only have 37266 music files. That can't be right! My goal is to weed through this latest collection of music files by the end of November so that, on December 1, 2015, I can state that I am "done" with this project of converting my CDs to MP3. I've used December 1, 2013, as the date on which I began this project & two years later, I'm ready to end it.
20151001 20151015 184916 There ought to be a HUGE asterisk next to the 184916 because it is for my entire E:\ drive, which is an external hard drive. It includes too many files to quickly count that are not music files. There is not an easy way to reduce 184916 by the number of non-music files. Thus, I entered this number.
20150916 20150930 155683 This is a crude calculation, but I'm looking at 155683 files on the 2 TB external hard drive in my Music folder. I don't know how this can be correct, but a DOS file command tells me that there are 113999 duplicate files, which would drop my total number to 41,684, which is astoundingly low. This upcoming weekend, my number one priority is to create a backup of the 2 TB external hard drive. Then, I will begin weeding through the files to eliminate duplicates and unneeded files (pesky "desktop.ini" files come to mind) in preparation for adding a new external hard drive to my arsenal.
20150901 20150915 Dead EHD I have not spent nearly enough time on weeding through the files on the MyCloud drive. While I did not purchase a 2 TB external hard drive, I did purchase a 1 TB external hard drive that I am using in the dock I purchased a ways back for trying to retrieve the data on the second external hard drive that crashed. Thus far, I am 1 for 3 when it comes to being able to retrieve data from an external hard drive that crashed.
20150816 20150831 Dead EHD I don't know why, but I seem to have bad luck with external hard drives. The 2 TB one I was using? Dead. Started acting funny and then, all of a sudden, Windows wants to reformat it, and that was then followed by Windows not being able to see that it's plugged into the USB port. Like a fool, I assumed that I could access the files on the drive by taking the hard drive out of its case and plopping it into my dock. I am now 1 for 3 as I have 3 external hard drives that I can put into the two slots on that dock, but only 1 of them - and not the 2 TB that just died - is accessible. All of this means that I now have to consolidate the multiple backup directories I have made into a single directory structure so that, when I have $100 laying around, I can copy that consolidated directory to a newly purchased external hard drive. At this point, I am somewhat optimistic. I do not believe I will have lost a catastrophic number of files, thanks to copying files from the (now deceased) external hard drive to the Cloud drive immediately prior to its death. Time will tell, though. Because I've not weeded through all the files on the Cloud drive, I am marking this row and the three previous rows as "Dead EHD." I don't expect to purchase a new external hard drive until at least after 9/1/2015, but it may take longer to consolidate the files on the Cloud drive. I also may take the time to consolidate the partitions I created - unique drive letters for 7 different partitions - into two partitions of 2 TB each. I am not 100% certain I am going to do that, though.
20150801 20150815 Dead EHD See above.
20150716 20150731 Dead EHD See above.
20150701 20150715 Dead EHD See above.
20150615 20150630 100308 I hit the big 100,000 music milestone, but, like most things in life, there's an asterisk next to it. There are 3286 files that I consider duplicates. Additionally, I am not done converting a bunch of files. I made copies of all of my WAV files and WMA files so I could convert them to MP3. That project is incomplete. Yet, because my DOS batch file says 100308, I'm going to run with it!
20150601 20150615 92422 Lots of projects in the works. I have been inching towards the completion of the conversion of the 200 CDs I purchased for $40 (as of this moment, there are 58 CDs remaining.
20150516 20150531 87178 Good and bad. The bad is that by eliminating ~2500 duplicate files, the total number of files in my collection has decreased. The good is that a purchase of ~200 CDs for $40 can hopefully counterbalance that decrease. Because I already have an extensive music collection, there are duplicates in what I am calling the "200for40" subset of CDs. For example, after I ripped 20 CDs, there were there 225 additional music files. Of those 225, 133 were new and 92 were duplicate, which calculates out to be about a 60/40 split. As these CDs are ripped, I am using the genre associated with the file to indicate whether it is a duplicate or not. For non-duplicates, I'm using "200for40" as the file's genre and for duplicates, I'm using "200for40_Duplicate" as the file's genre.
20150501 20150515 84651 New goal: reach 100,000 files by the end of 2015. Need to obtain an average of 66.73478260869565 files per day to do that as 100,000 84651 = 15349 / 230 days between today (5/15/15) and 12/31/2015.
20150416 20150430 83372 As expected, there was a bump in my number. What I didn't anticipate was that I'd be trading music with two of my friends (KH & MH). I also downloaded ~77 files last night to prepare for playing drums with Blue Scratch, a local blues / rock band. Some I already had "Sunshine of Your Love" being the first to come to mind but it was easier to re-download all the tunes on their list of songs from youtube.com into a specific folder than it was to search out the songs I already had. <shrug> I need to come up with a different way to organize this page as the asterisks are becoming a maintenance nightmare.
20150401 20150415 73594 The reason my number jumped up is two-fold. I've been scouring youtube.com for music; I've been consolidating the music files from several home network drives into my "master" music collection. It's a slow & tedious process. I expect another bump in my number by the end of the month.
20150316 20150331 66187 So, there's this thing called "life" and it sometimes kicks ass and sometimes, not so much. I began reconverting my CDs to audit what I converted. I created a new directory called "Music_Audit" and that's where the files from auditing my collection will be stored. In the meantime, I also have set out to convert all of my .wma files to .mp3 files, but that was then complicated by the audit process when I came upon 20ish data CDs. I copied the files on those 20 CDs to the same directory as the where I had copied the WMA files. In a sense, my F:\WMA directory should be called something different. It's a directory for filtering files copied from outside sources prior to their integration into the 'main' directory structure. I have 2610 File(s) that are in MP3 format and 505 File(s) that need to be converted. With hosting Easter this upcoming weekend, Megan graduating from high school & various other commitments, it will be interesting to view how much time I can commit to these tasks.
20150301 20150315 65632 While there was a little bump (198), I feel like this project is done until I begin converting my 1000ish cassettes to MP3. I don't envision that beginning until after. After Megan's graduation from high school. After Megan's graduation party. After the 2015 camping season in Elkader. After Megan moves into her dorm room at UNI. After the UNI football season (I paid my sister-in-law for our season tickets today). After this. After that. When all of those are historical events, then maybe, possibly, I can begin the reconversion of my cassettes. Until then, this page is going to be fairly boring.
20150215 20150228 65434 Today, on 3/7/2015 @ 7:14 AM (a Saturday, a week late, and prior to leaving for Balltown to spend time with Louie & Jean), I had the thought that I had not updated this page with the number from 2/28/2015. I was running the DOS batch file for all of my home network when we left for 5:15 Mass. Earlier in the day, I had changed my power settings to turn off after one hour when the laptop was plugged in. Thus, because the DOS batch file was not complete within one hour, the DOS batch file resumed on 3/1/2015 and continued. In the daily folder for storing daily DOS command results, there is a mixture of modified dates. There are files that have a modified date of 2/28/15 & files that have a modified date of 3/1/2015.
20150201 20150215 64806 As predicted, I bumped up my total.
20150116 20150131 64034 This is what the DOS batch file gave me as a total at 6:36 AM. The number for 2/1/15 through 2/15/15 will be higher as I've rediscovered a gold mine called Youtube.com. (Hint: 64428 as of just a few moments ago on 2/1/2015.)
20150101 20150115 62104 Wow. I got rid of 301 duplicate files. I sense there are more to be pruned.
20141216 20141231 61405 On Monday, December 27, 2014, my mom passed after a five year battle with dementia / Alzheimer's Disease.
20141201 20141215 62298 Even though I'm not actively converting CDs, I'm going to continue to update this page on the same schedule as I did from 12/1/2013 through 12/1/14. I continue to find duplicates. As the number in my music collection fluctuates, I want to track it. At some point, I may break up this page, perhaps starting with 1/1/2015 through 1/15/2015 and track by year. To me, that makes sense. As you can see, I eliminated 8814 files duplicate files since 12/1/2014.
20141116 20141130 71,112 PROJECT IS DONE! But it's not really done. See my post
here. When I ran my MS DOS batch file on 12/1/2013, I had 254 files. When I ran my MS DOS batch file on 12/1/2014, I had 71112 files so I gained 70858 in a year. I plan to expand my music collection in the upcoming months by converting ~1000 cassettes. However, that project will need to wait until after the pictures for Megan's graduation party have been scanned. That is a large project.
20141101 20141115 65885 The difference between the previous number and the number I got today is 10233. Obviously, there have been quite a few duplicate files eliminated and that, certainly is a good thing. I do not want a collection of 76118 if 10233 are duplicates. I have not ripped many CDs this first part of the month which means that the last part of the month is my last hurrah of the process of reconverting my CDs. While I have CDs to rip, the remaining ones are a lower priority. There are roughly 200 CDs remaining. 100 of them must have their information entered manually; 100 are mainly mix CDs that will add new files to the collection that are probably duplicated from ripping a CD earlier in this project. I expect to somehow finish the ripping of these CDs prior to 11/30/2014. I did not work this hard and for the last 11 months to go down to the wire of not meeting my 12/1/2014 goal.
20141016 20141031 76118 Obviously, I made a dent in reducing duplicates, decreasing my total file count by 12000. Progress is being made in that area. I actually did not rip very many CDs in the last 1/2 of the month because I focused on eliminating duplicates instead. I didn't work on the audit either. I did think about a better way to organize my CDs. I have 31 spindles of 100 each, plus hundreds more in cases. I thought about buying a 20 pack of 100 capacity spindles. I realized, though, that before I can state that I have 2000 CDs to be put on a spindle (versus a case) I need to have my CDs laid out / organized so I can count how many CDs I need to put on a spindle. I also need a solution for how to store the cards / inlays of the CDs. I need to get all of my CDs into organized stacks, such as all the As, all the Bs, etc. in order to determine what I need. That is a huge task in itself. I don't feel like I can do that task until I know I have all of my CDs ripped. I would like to use the DOS batch file text file logs to determine the order of the CDs but I don't have any way of knowing if the artist / album in the log file is from a physical CD or a download. I need to figure that out. All in all, there is a lot of things I'd really like to do with my CDs and not nearly enough time to work on those tasks. I need to get working on whatever pictures need to be scanned for Megan's graduation party, which I will begin on December 1, 2014, which is when I gave myself to finish the CD reconversion. For the next 30 days, though, I need to finish ripping the 100ish manual CDs and audit the status of ripping the Life CDs. Those tasks will likely require the entire month of November. It will be a busy month, with Pat & Ted's wedding this weekend, writing a review of Cinderella's vocalist's solo CD for Dailyvault.com, and a UNI football game on November 8th. I won't go beyond the next two weeks. There's a lot going on in life other than the CD reconversion.
20141001 20141015 88844 As you can see, I made some progress eliminating duplicates. My best estimate is that I have at least 14300 more files to eliminate. Honestly, I do not know if I will be able to complete that aspect of this project by 10/31. That said, my goal is to take the next 16 days to complete that task. Looking ahead, if I can finish the elimination of duplicates by 10/31/2014, I can use the month of November to rip the remaining 200ish CDs I have remaining. I am moving the completion of those 200 CDs to be out of scope for my December 1, 2014, deadline, but I still would like to finish them up. Just as a point of reference, I had 63055 File(s) on 10/11/2014. I used 10/11/2014 because the mostrecentcount.txt file for 10/15/2013 (apparently) didn't complete.
20140916 20140930 126155 It really feels good to have pulled from the My Cloud drive a bunch of the music files that I knew were duplicates. Now the task becomes weeding out the duplicates!
20140901 20140915 73393 Just for the record, this number represents A LOT of duplicates.
20140816 20140831 66431 Been busy!
20140801 20140815 57391 Apparently, I have eliminated more files than I have converted. Completed 200ish CDs that were in the C binder. Have the rest of the wood shelves, another spindle of 100, plus all the Life CDs to go. It's been tough to be able to find time to work on this project.
20140716 20140731 57695 I only gained 27 files?!? Wow. That's messed up.
20140701 20140715 57668 Seems low but would make sense if the previous number had a lot of duplicates.
20140616 20140701 63160 There are probably still some duplicates within this count.
20140601 20140615 Dead EHD Still working on consolidation of my files to a single music directory. Hopefully, will have an update by 7/1.
20140516 20140531 56035 This includes a lot of duplicate files that need to be pruned.
20140501 20140515 45185 I have MP3s on the Toshiba, on my work laptop, and on the Elkader PC that are not included in this number. I haven't had time to dedicate myself to consolidating the files to a single location. One issue is my work laptop wouldn't connect to my home wireless network last night.
20140401 20140415 Dead EHD Unfortunately, I wasn't completely done with the consolidation of my files to a single directory structure. The next number entered will include the 300+ CDs I ripped from Margaret Rainey.
20140316 20140331 Dead EHD Unfortunately, my Toshiba 2 TB external hard drive is not accessible on 3/31/2014 so I will update when possible. UPDATE! I ordered a dock from Amazon and I have been able to access the drive! I am currently copying my 1100+ folders from it to a drive on my MyCloud drive. I should be able to post 20140415 statistics by Monday, 4/15/2014! Yeah!!!
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You are now chatting with a Toshiba Direct operator. Please tell us about your Chat experience at the end of the conversation.
Clark: Thank you for choosing Toshiba Direct!  My name is Clark and I'll be your sales specialist for today.  How may I help you?
You: I have a Canvio Desk 2 TB external hard drive
Clark: Hi there!
You: sorry
You: I'm in North Liberty, IA
Clark: How may I help you with this drive?
You: I used my external hard drive yesterday
You: I plug it into my laptop at work and listen to music.
You: when I shut down last night, my laptop shut down normally
You: I didn't unplug the external hard drive from my laptop until the laptop was off
You: I did not turn it on last night
Clark: That's good practice as well.
You: this AM, when I booted up my laptop, I plugged in the external hard drive
You: no little blue light came on
You: I tried a different outlet - nothing
Clark: I see. Is the cable properly connected?
You: the electric plug?
Clark: Yes.
You: yep
Clark: I'm sorry to hear that. Based on the information you provided, it appears that you need the assistance/knowledge of our Technical Support Specialists.
You: I have it next to me now and I just re-inserte the plug
Clark: In as much as I want to help you with this concern, I am a Toshiba Direct Sales Chat Specialist and I am not trained for this kind of issue. Let me help you by referring you to our Accessories Support Department at (888) 592-0944 (toll free) and choose option 2 so they can assist you better with your concern.
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You: Thanks Clark
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Clark: Is there anything else I can help you with?
You: I had tried to search for "external hard drive no light" on the support site and didn't get any matches.
You: thanks for directing me to the Tech Support chat link!
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 6:24 PM Connecting...
6:24 PM Connected. A support representative will be with you shortly.
6:24 PM Support session established with Golpe R.
6:24 PM Golpe R: Welcome to Toshiba Technical Chat Support. My name is Von. How may I help you?
6:25 PM Customer: Hi
6:26 PM Golpe R: Hi, how may I help you?
6:27 PM Customer: I have a Canvio Desk 2 TB external hard drive
I'm in North Liberty, IA
I used my external hard drive yesterday
I plug it into my laptop at work and listen to music.
when I shut down last night, my laptop shut down normally
I didn't unplug the external hard drive from my laptop until the laptop was off
I did not turn it on last night
this AM, when I booted up my laptop, I plugged in the external hard drive
no little blue light came on
I tried a different outlet - nothing
The cable is properly connected.
I have it next to me now and I just re-inserted the plug
6:28 PM Customer: (sorry for the "dump" of info - I had gotten into a chat with Sales and "Clark" directed me to the Tech Support chat so I just copied / pasted from that to this window)
6:30 PM Golpe R: Are you calling about the external hard drive?
6:30 PM Customer: yes
6:31 PM Customer: when I plug it in, the little blue light that came on yesterday does not come on today.
6:33 PM Golpe R: Is it being detected by the computer?
6:34 PM Customer: no
6:34 PM Customer: there's no noise or anything from the external hard drive
6:35 PM Golpe R: If that's the case we need file acclaim to have it replaced for a brand new one.
6:35 PM Customer: what happens to the data that is on the one I have now?
6:36 PM Customer: like my 30,000+ MP3s?
6:36 PM Golpe R: We cant do back up sir.
6:36 PM Golpe R: All your data will be lost.
6:36 PM Customer: that's not funny
6:37 PM Golpe R: I'm really sorry. We really do not do back up.
6:37 PM Customer: what is the procedure for a replacement?
6:38 PM Customer: do you have any videos for how to open the external hard drive case and get the hard drive out oof it?
6:38 PM Customer: I looked on youtube and didn't find videos for the canvio
6:40 PM Customer: can you send me a new power cord?
6:42 PM Golpe R: You will need to file it on our acclaim website to have it replace.
6:42 PM Golpe R: We cannot send a power cord.
6:42 PM Golpe R: You need to send everything to have it replace.
6:43 PM Customer: are there any videos on opening the case?
6:44 PM Golpe R: If you opened that, you might void the warranty.
6:45 PM Customer: but if I don't try to open it, I am 100% guaranteed to lose my 30,000 MP3s and every single file on it, right?
6:45 PM Customer: because, if I send it back to you, you will not open the case and transfer those files to a new external hard drive and send it back.
6:45 PM Customer: right?
6:46 PM Golpe R: Yes, that's right.
6:47 PM Customer: hmm
6:48 PM Customer: even if a video for opening the case, I gather from your lack of a 'straight answer' you are not authorized to provide me with a link to it
6:48 PM Customer: because you don't want to have me try to open the case and then end up voiding my warranty.
6:48 PM Customer: I get it.
6:49 PM Customer: I appreciate that you are trying to protect me from myself
6:49 PM Customer: but you also need to understand I had 4 PC towers in my den
6:51 PM Customer: I removed the power supply from one, a hard drive from another was added to one of the PCs,, and a second hard drive from yet another. I put one of the hard drives into a Seagate external hard drive case.
6:51 PM Golpe R: I'm sorry. I just letting you know what might happen, and I know that it will really void the warranty.
6:52 PM Customer: Sounds like if I'm going to get help with not losing my 30,000 MP3s and other data, it's not going to be from Toshiba.
6:52 PM Customer: Toshiba should have a sub-contract with a data recovery firm
6:52 PM Customer: I can't be the first person to tell you about a situation like this
6:53 PM Customer: must be frustrating, as a tech support specialist.
6:59 PM Golpe R: We actually have a department who can do back up but their will be a charge for that.
7:03 PM Customer: do you have a link to that department's website so I can review the information, such as turnaround time, cost, etc?
7:05 PM Golpe R: I can give you the number.
7:09 PM Golpe R: Here's the phone number 888-933-0322
7:11 PM Customer: calling now
7:11 PM Golpe R: Ok.
7:12 PM Golpe R: See what they have say first.
7:19 PM Golpe R: Anything else that I can help you with?
7:19 PM Customer: no
7:19 PM Customer: I'm on hold
7:19 PM Customer: thank you for the phone number - I'll see what they say
7:20 PM Customer: I did find http://www.cbldatarecovery.com/, which was listed on the website
7:20 PM Customer: anyways, thanks.

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