I think I lost Everything!!!!

[T and J Karaoke]

Ok I was working on cleaning up my hoster and all the songs when all of the sudden it said that it couldn't find the drive to correct one of the songs. I have all my kma's on an external drive but none on my C: drive. Isn't that what the songs_backup.mdb is for, just in case we loose all our information. If it is how in the world do we get to it to redo it and rebuild my drive. Please someone Help me I have a major show tomorrow!!! And a talent comp this weekend:e. Now it says I only have 2000 Kma songs and I had over 18,000. What do I do!!!!!!!!!

[mindonstrike]

to get songsbackup to work you have to change its name to songs.

Go to "My Computer" and see if Windows is seeing your external drive. If not that would explain alot, bad cable or bad drive probably.

Also check and make sure the external HD has the correct drive letter.

If Windows can see and explore it, you can check for your other KMA's, if they are there just rebuild the database.

[ddouglass]

The database only stores the location of the KMA files, Artist name, Title and some other information, but not the files themselves. If you edit a song (change something in the title or a characteristic when you hit apply this information is saved to the database and to the KMA file header. With the error message you got it is saying that Hoster cannot find the file to save the new information to. This indicates a problem with the drive not with the database.
Run Chkdsk on the drive to check for problems. If there are a lot of Bad Sectors it is time to replace the drive....quickly. You should have a back-up of all your KMA files to keep this from being a major problem.

[T and J Karaoke]

Right now I am doing a data recovery to see if I can find the kma files. I am crossing my fingers and hoping to the lord up above that this works but I don't think it will. I just hope that I don't have to start all over again. If that don't work I will go ahead and do what you told me to.

Thank you

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This should have never happened and I can't understand how it did, when one minute they are all on there and the next they are all gone.

[ddouglass]

It's called hard drive failure....it happens and that is why back-ups are so important. Hard drives use magnetic media to store information in a tiny area. The problem is the material can deteriorate, the head(s) can get out of alignment, and any number of other problems.

[madjim- with the Lord]

It's called hard drive failure....it happens and that is why back-ups are so important. Hard drives use magnetic media to store information in a tiny area. The problem is the material can deteriorate, the head(s) can get out of alignment, and any number of other problems.
I lost the hard drive in on of my machines last year BUT I had a backup of my KMA's. T and J, you are not alone, just lessons to learn like everything else in life. FATHER (GOD) is awsome and will see that you get through. He puts nothing on us that we can't handle. :w

I pray that all works out for you!

Jim :g

[Beavis]

what version are you running ?

man you have to have more than one back up of your kma's !!!

[madjim- with the Lord]

what version are you running ?

man you have to have more than one back up of your kma's !!!

I agree. With hard drives so cheap these days...........:e

Jim :g

[T and J Karaoke]

well I thought that is what the backup log was for. I didn't know. I guess hoster needs to add that to thier ungodly list of things to do. This should have never happened. All my other files on this drive are fine. Just the kma's are gone. I have two other files with everything on them.

Confused as ever!!!!!!!!

[T and J Karaoke]

Oh and the version is 3.321

[T and J Karaoke]

You are not going to believe this. ok when the drive looked like it lost everything, I was deleting files off of my home computer and updating my books. The version I have on my home computer is 3.321. I decided to see if the worst was yet to come and just hook the external hard drive up to my laptop and have it give me a message such as: F/ cannot find FMA file. Well low and behold all the songs are on there. They are not on my hard drive. I don't know where they are pulling the songs from cause I went into mtu/hoster/songs and they aren't there either but I am not complaining. The only thing I am wondering is where in the heck is it coming from. I wonder. This is definatly an admin issue don't you think? My hard drive didn't crash at all because the other files are on there just fine. I have no viruses. I did a recovery and it didn't find the missing files. Oh lord I am dumb when it comes to this tedious stuff!!!! Does someone have an intelligent answer in plain english!

[madjim- with the Lord]

You are not going to believe this. ok when the drive looked like it lost everything, I was deleting files off of my home computer and updating my books. The version I have on my home computer is 3.321. I decided to see if the worst was yet to come and just hook the external hard drive up to my laptop and have it give me a message such as: F/ cannot find FMA file. Well low and behold all the songs are on there. They are not on my hard drive. I don't know where they are pulling the songs from cause I went into mtu/hoster/songs and they aren't there either but I am not complaining. The only thing I am wondering is where in the heck is it coming from. I wonder. This is definatly an admin issue don't you think? My hard drive didn't crash at all because the other files are on there just fine. I have no viruses. I did a recovery and it didn't find the missing files. Oh lord I am dumb when it comes to this tedious stuff!!!! Does someone have an intelligent answer in plain english!

Thank GOD you have your KMA files. Please go to Wal-Mart (or wherever) and buy another external hard drive and make a backup copy of all of your KMA files before you do anything else.

The conclution that your hard drive failed came from your description of the problem, I'm glad to hear this is not the case. :c

It sounds to me like you have all of your KMA files on an external drive which is common and works well. :) Plug in your external drive with your KMA files on it then go to Tools, Build Songs Database and delete all folders except the one on your external drive that holds your KMA files then rebuild your database. (Be sure to print your "new songs" page for your songbook before you do this :w) This should get you back on track.

I hope this helps.

Jim :g

[T and J Karaoke]

I only use my external hard drive. Some way some how it is on my laptop though. If I go ahead and rebuild my database, where am I going to rebuild it from? I cannot find it on my laptop at all! I am soo frustrated it isn't even funny. I am scared that if I even try to do anything like that it is going to crash. I will be getting me another external hard drive but what is weird is that what is on my external hard drive is fine. I have alot of karaoke that isn't even loaded into hoster yet on there and it is just fine. One of the files is hoster though and that is where I load all the kma files. I usually use my home laptop to transfer files over to my external rather then break out the laptop. Do you still think it would be my external Hard drive even though I have other stuff on it that is fine?

[madjim- with the Lord]

When you plug the external drive into your computer or your laptop through a USB port, it should see the drive and give it a letter like "E" or "F". Is this happening?

Hoster should be installed on your "C" drive. Is this the case?

Jim :g

[T and J Karaoke]

Yes to both. Hoster is installed on my C: Drive but I save all my Kma's onto my external drive which is my F: Drive. It would be better to talk on the phone I am messageing you on Myspace with my number ok.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Yes to both. Hoster is installed on my C: Drive but I save all my Kma's onto my external drive which is my F: Drive. It would be better to talk on the phone I am messageing you on Myspace with my number ok.
Okay

Jim :g

[madjim- with the Lord]

Jennifer has 3.321 on her home machine running XP.
She has 3.316 on her laptop running Vista.
She has her KMA files in a folder on an external drive.
She was deleting KMA file on her home machine (XP) through Hoster using the Edit Songs feature when this problem occoured.
I got her to custom update her version of XP.
She said she ran scandisc on the external hard drive and it did not find any bad sectors.
She has a show tonight and is going to use her laptop. She will give an update of the problem afterwards.
I don't run Vista so I can't hellp her in that department.
She is not very computer literate so keep all explaination and questions as simple as possible.

Thanks Everybody!

Jim :g

[Beavis]

did you search the hard drive for kma's using search feature in windows??

[T and J Karaoke]

Beavis to answer your question. Yes I did and I only found 2437 files when I originally had 18694 files.

Now what happened last night! Everything worked as normal. All my Karaoke was there. How it was there I don't know????? All my songs were there but when I looked at the external hard drive it still showed only 2437 files. It did crash on me last night cause I added a song on that was not in my books and I had to restart. But once I did, it was back to normal. I am so scared to rebuild my database in fear that I am going to loose all my work. Everything that I loaded! The thing that puzzles me is where in the heck is hoster getting these files from if not from my C: drive and not from my F: external? I am so comfused it isn't even funny!

Thank you to all who is trying to help!

[hwheeler43]

:) This may be off base but you might want to go to the Tools menu and select Build Songs Database on the machine where you can see your files. This should give you a clue as to which folders your songs are under. You can then copy them back to a folder on your external for backup purposes.

[marklwood]

Beavis to answer your question. Yes I did and I only found 2437 files when I originally had 18694 files.

The thing that puzzles me is where in the heck is hoster getting these files from if not from my C: drive and not from my F: external? I am so comfused it isn't even funny!

Thank you to all who is trying to help!

Start button.....Search......all files and folders......all drives.......*.kma....should get 18964 results, and list where they are all at. Go to the folder that you didn't know about. Select all and move to where you want them. ie. F:\Songs. On a USB drive this should only take abaout a day and a half.:) Then rebuild your database selecting ONLY that folder. Remove the other entries in the build database list.

Just kidding, it will take some time though.

[T and J Karaoke]

wheeler,

See that is the thing... I don't see the files at all on my laptop nor my home computer. My external drive only shows 2437 files or so. I have over 18,000 files in hoster. When I ran my show tuesday, I don't have a clue on where it was getting the music from if there are only 2000 on my external hard drive and there is no songs in my songs file in my C: drive. Call me stupid but I am so confused on where hoster is pulling these up from. I am going to go ahead and do a search again to see if I can find them but I did that once before and only found 2437 on the F: external drive. Do you think I just need to do it off the laptop where it is finding all the files? The laptop is Vista. Oh and another thing. I have been running vista with hoster on 3.316 for a year now and have not really had a problem like this before. Madjim said it might be cause I switch between the home computer which is xp and the laptop which is vista. I will tell you the only thing that I did do different is upgrade 3.321 on my home computer. I am too scared to upgrade my vista for it has been working fine.

[ddouglass]

Are C: and F: the only hard drives on the laptop?
Do a search of the whole C: drive and that should tell you where the files are. My guess would be that they are either still under
C:\Program Files\Micro Technologies Unlimited\Hoster\Songs or
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Music\...
When you find them I would move them all to C:\MTU\KMA Files. This way Vista won't mess with them.
You would be better off to upgrade the laptop to 3.321 and get it all correctly installed. The version you are running is not really setup correctly for Vista and at some point Vista will rear its ugly head and bite you.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Everything worked as normal.


This is good news! it means the KMA files have not been deleted, you just have to figure out where they are and put them all in one folder as Dale suggested. Keep working on it. Once you find your KMA's and put them in the same folder, select this folder in the Build Database window and rebuild (not merge) the database. :w

Jim

[T and J Karaoke]

going to try that after this weekend is over
don't want to loose what I have. Thank you for all your help. I will keep you updated on what happens.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Have a great weekend!

Jim :g

[mindonstrike]

wheeler,

See that is the thing... I don't see the files at all on my laptop nor my home computer. My external drive only shows 2437 files or so. I have over 18,000 files in hoster. When I ran my show tuesday, I don't have a clue on where it was getting the music from if there are only 2000 on my external hard drive and there is no songs in my songs file in my C: drive. Call me stupid but I am so confused on where hoster is pulling these up from. I am going to go ahead and do a search again to see if I can find them but I did that once before and only found 2437 on the F: external drive. Do you think I just need to do it off the laptop where it is finding all the files? The laptop is Vista. Oh and another thing. I have been running vista with hoster on 3.316 for a year now and have not really had a problem like this before. Madjim said it might be cause I switch between the home computer which is xp and the laptop which is vista. I will tell you the only thing that I did do different is upgrade 3.321 on my home computer. I am too scared to upgrade my vista for it has been working fine.If you want to go to C\MTU\Hoster, make a copy of Songs.mdb paste it to your desktop and zip it and then use the manage attachments when posting and upload it with a post, one of us with Access can open it and tell you exactly where your KMA's are.

Sam

[T and J Karaoke]

Sam here is the zipped file that you asked for.

[ddouglass]

According to your database there are only 16,088 song files and they are in H:\Hoster Songs.

[T and J Karaoke]

But how do I retrieve it if it don't go back to the h: drive in my home computer. How am I going to rebuild the database.

[T and J Karaoke]

is there anything in this one??

[mindonstrike]

18118 ind the backup. and they are at F:\Hoster Songs\.

Sam

[T and J Karaoke]

ok now how do I retrieve them cause when I go to my external hard drive it only shows 2437 in the F:Drive

[ddouglass]

Vista has hidden those files from you. If you go ahead and upgrade the laptop to 3.321 this should set everything back to the correct settings to satisfy Vista. Be sure and pay close attention to the instructions in the installer.
Vista has more than likely turned back on the UAC through an update, which is what is causing the files to be hidden from you. 3.321 has been set up to work with the UAC on and the Hoster program set to run in administrator mode which will allow it to work correctly. 3.316 was the early version MTU tried to set up for Vista, but it took a lot of trial and error to figure out exactly what needed to be set to make it work right.

[swany]

Had the same crap on my Vista laptop. I could load a new disk in and could not find it on the hard drive but in the search function on hoster it is there.

If you have an early version, it will have a button above the kma files the last one on the right above it. Click that and the hidden files will appear.

Go to organize, folder and search options, view, click show hidden files and folders. Hit the apply button.

[T and J Karaoke]

Thank you so much everyone for your help. I will try this after this weekend. I have a show all weekend long so therefore I don't want to screw nothing up just yet! LOL

[mindonstrike]

After reading all the posts again it does look like vista is hiding them from you and XP, but not Hoster on Vista, which is really strange because I've had Hoster on a Vista laptop for over a year and never ever had any issues with KMA's (or any files) on the external drive nor the internal D drive partitioned with C, I only encountered weird things on C itself.

Like swany said if Vista is hiding them you should have a "compatibility files" button at the top of the F or F\Hoster songs folder that will show those to you.

Sam

[T and J Karaoke]

ok guess what. Problem solved. I don't know what happened but vista asked me to combine files and I did and low and behold all 18,000 were back on my F: Drive. Now next step! By another external so this don't happen again. Thank you to everyone trying to help me on this matter. Everyone was great!!!:g

[madjim- with the Lord]

Jennifer,
I'm glad we got you back on track. :w

Jim

[swany]

I see this problem from time to time on this site. This is with older Vista and Hoster 3.317 (Note their finally is a patch for Vista I was going nuts with it at my home pc and got it, guess what it is like fix a flat it gets you going I'm still not convinced)

Here is what I've learned. Okay the compatability files does find them for you.

Here is another scenario. I made a file Hoster songs loaded my kma files to it. I can access all of these anytime I want.

When I load in new files from CD they are hidden and I cannot find them using them search from the hard drive. But show up using hosters search. Ol dummy me did not use his sense when using hosters down load. It does state they are going to Hoster/songs not Hoster songs When your music is gone and it tells you where it is it is there. Go to computer, program files, Micro Technology Unlimited, Hoster, at this point go to Organize, folder and search options, View, click show hidden files and folders, and apply. Your songs or songs file should appear. (At this point the file Hoster/songs appears and can be searched on my PC) If you still don't see all the files click compatability at this point.


I do hope my bumbling and never give up attitude helps others. Me I'm going to fix all this BS on my PC by removing all of them and reloading in one area away from Hoster as the newest version does.

[admin]

Gentlemen, thank you for helping Jennifer here.

What can I say... we do NOT recommend Vista. :e :m

The problem is how to upgrade from XP where KMA files are safe no matter where they are, to Vista which can hide, auto-move and even DELETE them! :e

As Swany pointed out, Hoster 3.321, when all our "conversion" recommendations are followed, makes the files appear.

We spent over a man-month of time crawling through what Vista was doing, and it was very, very hidden. We finally, on our last day before I totally abandoned Vista support, found a Microsoft document (a new one that had appeared) that explained all the screwiness in Vista's file system. It is truly incredible the assumptions they are making to "protect you" from doing what you WANT to do! :f

[ddouglass]

Admin, do you have a link to that document? I want to try and keep up with Microsoft's quirks.