Data recovery – rescuing musical memories
There was a time when an old music collection would be consigned to an unobtrusive resting place – the loft, the back of a cupboard, or even the garage. Cassettes, CDs and vinyl would gather dust, until suddenly pulled out with no warning at a friends’ reunion or party.
That tradition is changing, as our musical habits move with the digital era. We are more likely to store music in libraries of MP3s on our computers or portable listening devices. This is great for convenience, and allows us to enjoy years of emotion-evoking music at our fingertips, rather than it being stored away in a dark corner of our home. It does, however, sometimes come at a cost.
With the transition towards digital listening, we leave ourselves at the mercy of our computers. The digital age adage is ‘always back up your files’. But how many of us go to the lengths of backing up all the music files in our possession?
That’s why when a hard drive becomes corrupted, or a PC damaged in an accident, it puts our treasured music collections in danger. A distraught friend experienced the considerable trauma of losing most of his music, when a laptop ceased to work. Believe it or not it was the music, not the work or video files, which meant the most.
The owners whose files are rescued are left with a feeling of gratitude towards the data recovery expert that salvaged the mess, and these specialists are likely to grow in demand as our love affair with digital music continues. Whether it be the failure of an operating system or accidental damage, all is not lost.
Techniques such as table partitioning, master boot record and file system repair are now used to save your 1990s Britpop tracks from extinction. Even when it seems files have been deleted in error, they can in fact be found by the experts through references left in the directory structure.
So here’s to data recovery experts and the sterling job they do in making sure our musical memories can live on through the digital era.
