My data recovery hell

donlucasdonlucas
edited March 2004 in Science & Tech
I recently lost 10 months worth of recordings,demos, sketches, etc. on a Tascam 788 (8-track HD recorder. A portastudio). Expert data recovery companies have found the data but can't access it and put it together because Tascam are unwilling / unable to disclose their file format or codex or encryption. The songs are there but, they say it's unrecoverable because of their inability to disclose their 'secret ingredient' to a third party. In other words , if you buy certain Tascam equipment , and you lose your data, you may as well shoot yourself.The recordings in question amount to a lot of hard work, ideas, etc. Priceless. especially when i was literally about to pursue some serious meetings with labels.
I have been told that getting onto forums like this may prove surprisingly helpful. All i did was quick format the drive accidentally, which effectively erases the 'directory' but leaves the data intact.
Any ideas? Thanks for listening. Tascam didn't.

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Don, faint hope, but see if you can get anything back with a pure MIDI file (.mid) type recovery. Second, see if you can find any recovery software that recovers Microsoft DirectSound raw files, the Tascam files are said to be DirectSound compatible. And .mid files are DirectSound compatible also.

    Also, the area linked to below is a simple forum setup just for techs, and the folks here might know how to recover-- or the techs at the web store that sponsors this forum might know (zZounds staff, that is).

    http://www.musicianstechcentral.com/wwwboard/wwwboard.html

    John D-- who does little of that kind of thing, unfortunately. But, primesuspect here might have some contacts.... PM him and see, no guarantees though.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    The only way I know to do anything with this tape other than what I said is this, and it will have to be a general outline:

    See if you can get soemone to do a pure data packet recovery, breaking files at pauses on all tracks (you might get some broken songs at pauses if you have pauses in songs on ALL channels at once, but can get music streams as pure packets probably.

    Present the files to PicoZip, see if they just compressed raw midi files with one of the 20+ compression schemes PicoZip knows.

    If PicoZip can uncompress them you will have probably raw midi tracks (combined) coming out, or .wav files. PicoZip can handle so many compression schemes in base form that it is not funny, and recognize by compression headers in files. I have used it to uncompress double and triple compressions also.

    Then, see if GigaStudio (Tascam's product, AFAIK, for mastering\composing\sequencing-- zZounds has it in various versions) MIGHT be able to regen your scores (if it has a scoring function from raw input) and from there, you would treat as music and listen for where the ideas were and reannotate the score.

    Note also that the GigaStudio summary on zZound's store said the files were also .wav compatible....

    Only hints, best that I can do myself.
    John D.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    I have clients that also have Tascam-Support-Nightmares-From-Hell.

    I'll talk to one of them and see what he says about your HD. I'm no expert, but I know a lot of people who are....
  • donlucasdonlucas
    edited March 2004
    [QUOTE=Ageek, thanks so much for your reply. Tascam 788 files are allegedly non PC or Mac recognisable, so in my very limited technological knowledge, i hope the raw-data software option you offer can lead me somewhere.
    I'll get in touch with John D.
    Talk later.
    Best
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