Where to begin reloading music lost

[Nitecat]

My hard drive has bit the dust. I had previously been able to get 38 gig of my songs backed up, but was never able to get the rest done (no lectures please). I had a total of 53 gigs of songs, so have lost 15 gig and will need to reload them. My only other option at this point is to find someone who can try data recovery/clean room, but I assume that would be very expensive. I have song books already made up with the 53 gigs of songs and need the Book Ids to remain as previously loaded. With the news (wonderful Christmas present) from my electronic repair shop that they have found no way to retrieve the data, I am presented with determining what music I'm missing and how to go about reloading the 15 gigs of music that was lost. Figuring out what is missing....hhhmmm, not sure how to do this either. Also, do I point to the new drive that has the 38 gigs that are OK and rebuild the database, then reload the 15 gigs of lost music, making sure to load with the same book ID used before? I'm feeling a bit confused, so any advice would be appreciated. Not sure if this will work or if I'm missing something. Help!

[nreel]

If you were able to either save the the ORIGINAL SONGS.MDB (Prior to Hard Drive Failure) or Recover this file it will be of GREAT Help to you!

Assuming you have either saved or recovered the Original SONGS.MDB, copy it to a safe place.

Then, rebuild the DATABASE with the Sings you have recovered.

Now you will be able to compare the Old SONGS.MDB with the New SONGS.MDB and determine which Book IDs you have and the Book IDs you need.

Once determining this, re-import what is missing by manually selecting the Book ID that corresponds to each Missing Disc.


Hope this helps,

Norm

P.S. Pay no attention to anyone who may advise you that you may be complaining and that is just the cost of doing business (inside joke).

[Nitecat]

Norm,

Thanks for your input. I'll see if I can figure it out based on what you have said. If I have questions, I'll post again here. I may not be working on it now until after Christmas, so watch for me posting next week. Have a happy holiday.

[nreel]

Nitecat

I'll be watching...

Also, if you go the Songs.MDB route, make sure you copy the Songs.MDB file to a Temporary Folder before you rebuild your Database. Otherwise, you will copy over the Old Songs.MDB and you will lose all what was logged before your HD Failure.

Also, I was thinking, if you saved your Database from which you Printed your Song Lists, you can ALPHA SORT on the Book ID Column and determine from it what BookIDs/Discs are missing as compared to your Songs.MDB after you Rebuild the Database.

Norm

P.S. I had a HD Failure earlier this year and looked into a company retrieving the data. Depending on the HD size, your looking at $700 and up. The irony of my HD failure is that I bought that HD for Backup purposes. And, no sooner I moved 100 GIG of info to it, the Heads crashed. Sux...I know.

[Nitecat]

Norm,

OK, I've made it through the Christmas festivities and am back at this thing and trying to understand how to begin my reloading process. My questions may seem dumb, but here goes....

Q1. Would the original songs.mdb file you mentioned be the songs file that is in a Microsoft Access Database format? What software is the .mdb extension from? I have my Hoster program and databases on my laptop C: drive. There is a songs file and also a couple of Temp files in the Databases folder. Not sure what they all are. Are any of these what I am looking for? What I have lost is about 15 gigs of my KMA files that were on an external drive.

Q2. I do not have Access software. Will I need this to do what you have suggested? If so, I have Access on my work PC, if I can somehow use that for this. Will I be printing something out once I open the file assuming I can find a way to open it?

Q3. You said to copy the songs file to a temp file, then rebuild database. Just to clarify for myself (and please correct me if any of this is wrong):

-copy song file to a temp file
-this temp file would have info about my original 53 gigs (what all is in this file?)
-I then point Hoster to my good external backup drive that has the 38 gigs I managed to backup before the other external drive failure and do Tools, Build Songs Database
-this will leave me with a temp file of info on my 53 gigs and a new song file with info on the 38 gigs I managed to save
-by comparing these two somehow, I can determine what I need to reload

Is this correct? What all info. shows in these files? Is there a way to print them out?

Q4. You also mentioned doing an ALPHA SORT (not sure why alpha) on Book ID and comparing this to the rebuilt songs.mdb. Which do you think would be best? I have not changed anything in the database folders on my C:drive, so what I used for my song books is still there.

Q5. I spent a lot of time correcting information that was wrong with the song title and artist names (Using the Edit Songs feature) prior to my external hard drive failure. I don't want to have to do this again. When I reload the 15 gigs that are missing, will it pull in the song titles and artist names as I had corrected then or am I going to lose that and need to fix these again? Will doing the Build Songs Database to rebuild delete all of that? Sure wish there were some way to first figure out what KMA files I am missing and get them back onto my good external hard drive without changing the databases that have been corrected. I do want the databases to still match my song books though, since I just spent a lot of time and money on new books.

Guess that is all of my questions for now. I probably sound pretty dumb, but oh well. I don't want to screw anything up and figure it's better to ask now. I understand some of how Hoster and all these files work together, but not totally and it sure can be confusing.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated. Nitecat

[Beavis]

are you absolutely sure the hard drive is dead ??

you can always take the hard drive out of the case and hook it up to a desktop as a slave. it may run long enough to get all you kma files to another hard drive.

[Nitecat]

Beavis,

The computer tech at my electronic repair place has tried everything and says he cannot retrieve the data from the hard drive. Originally we had hoped that the hard drive inside the case would be fine. They now believe it is also damaged. They say that the USB port got pushed in and damaged some things inside (capitor, transistor.... I think). They opened the case, removed the hard drive and tried a number of things to get it to work, but no luck. They said for the USB port to be damaged like this, the drive was most likely dropped. I know for a fact that it has never been dropped or mishandled. I am very puzzled about how it was damaged, but guess even if I could figure that out, it doesn't help me now. I had tried a couple times to back up this drive that had all my KMA files, but was not successful in getting them all backed up. The drive would always stop part way through during the backup, which I now believe was due to the drive file system being FAT32 instead of NTSF. I did get 38 gigs backed up out of 53, so I am at the point now of trying to recover (reload) what I am missing. Believe me, once I manage to get the 53 gigs loaded again, I will have several drives backing this up. I will never put off getting that accomplished again.

Norm has been kind enough to offer advice. I don't want to proceed with anything until I know for sure what I am doing. I'm in a bad enough spot now without making it any worse. So that's where things are.

If you know of any other way to try and get the data from the damaged drive, please give me detailed instructions. I'll try anything. Thanks. Nitecat

[nreel]

Q1. Yes, this is an MSAccess Database. MDB is from an MSAccess Database.
You are looking for SONGS.MDB

If you cannot see the extension "MDB" then do this: (assuming you have WinXP)
Open MY COMPUTER

Click on TOOLS at the top

Click on FOLDER OPTIONS at the Bottom of the TOOLS Menu

Click on the VIEW Tab in the FOLDER OPTIONS Menu

Under FILES and FOLDERS, make sure all Boxes are "CHECKED" but the box next to the one that says "Do Not Cache Thumbnails."

Under HIDDEN FILES and FOLDERS, make sure the RADIO BUTTON on "Show Hidden Files and Folders" is selected. Make sure all Boxes are "CHECKED" except the FOUR boxes next to the ones that say "Hide Extensions For Known File Types," "Hide Protected Operating System Files," "Restore previous Folder Windows at login," and "Show Control Panel in My Computer."

Click APPLY
Click OK

Now you should be able to see all extensions on all files.

The, original, Songs.MDB, prior to Hard Drive Failure, is what you are looking for and trying to save.

Q2. I have MSAccess Software, so I don't know if you will be able to OPEN the SOngs.MDB if you do not have MSAccess.
Once you locate the Songs.MDB, double-click the file and see if it Opens. If it does Open, then you can read the file.

Q3. Correct
Info about Brand/Disc#/Track#/BookID#
If you can Open the files, you can Print them.

Q4. Alpha Sort, meaning, "to put in order," however that order is.
First, I would Alpha sort the Book ID column so that an accounting of all Book Ids will be at a ready reference and Print the Data.

This gets tricky Alpha Sorting this column because there are no leading ZEROS on BOOK ID 1, which is where MTU didn't see the wisdom in adding Leading ZEROS - which, as you can see, is needed for just this purpose - Alpha Sorting, and you will end up with this kind of Sort:
101
10101
Obviously, 10101 (ten thousand one hundred and one DOESN'T come after one hundred and one...does it? I mean, there are a lot of Book Ids between 1 and 101 that will not Alpha Sort where they should be due to the lack of leading ZEROS.)
With 3 Leading Zeros: (This accounts for 9,999 discs, which we will never see in our lifetime.)
000101
000102
etc.
010101
Which, an alpha sort would be 100% meaningful on the Book ID column.
But, suffice to say, most of the Book IDs will be in order.

Unless you know how to REPLACE text...Then, you can add 3 ZEROs in front of all numbers beginning with 1 through 9 and Two ZEROs in front of 10 thru 99 and One ZERO in from of 100 thru 999 so that all Book IDs will have the same number of Place Holdings for true Alpha Sorting. This is very complicated, though.

Then, I would Alpha Sort on the Disc# and Track#. Go through Disc by Disc and separate what I have from what I don't have.

Once separation is accomplished, I would use the OLD Songs.MDB to determine, on a disc by disc basis, what Book IDs belong to the remaining and unaccounted for discs and Re-import those discs using the, now, known and previous assigned Book ID.

The saved SongBook file may help, somewhat, but, Book Ids without Disc Numbers may be worthless. Even, assuming you had your SongBook print the Disc Id info, the Disc IDs are not in columns by themselves in order to perform an Alpha SORT.

Basically, it may become an added reference for checks and balances.

Q5.Fortunately, when the database is rebuilt with what you have salvaged, all the editing, previously done to the KMA Header, will be restored.

Unfortunately, any disc that needs to be re-imported will only go by the data pulled from the BUCKET.MDB. However, the silver lining is that, with the Original SONGS.MDB, you can compare, line-by-line, info of how its Artist/Song Title info was to the Song info you are getting ready to Import and make changes accordingly.

I know that this is a lot of info, but approaching the problem in a systematic way will help ease the burden.

If you need help in manipulating your Songs.MDB PM (Private Message) me your email and I will help as much as I can. I could probably tell you, in about 3-hours, what is missing and what Book Ids belong to what is missing.

Norm

For those of you, other than Nitecat, who may read this POST but do not have the ability to understand what I am offering, in the way of help, I will spell it out.

I am not asking Nitecat to send me ANY KMA files. I am only offering assistance with his MSAccess Database.

[Nitecat]

Norm,

Well, I just finished typing a long posting to you on all of this. When I hit send, I discovered my internet connection was gone.....and of course then so was the lengthy posting. So, I'll start again. My luck just has to get better.

Wow, thanks for all of the great information. I had been trying to figure out how to get those file extensions to show and knew there was a way, just hadn't found it yet. Your intructions were great. Anyway, I do have the songs.mdb file, but cannot open it without Access. I'll either take the file to work where I have Access or buy Access for use at home. I'm stuck till I do one of those. I think I understand everything you have said. If I run into trouble, I'll send a PM. Was posting on here so that others might benefit from something we cover.

As for the Alpha Sort, I did understand that you meant for me to put the file in order by Book Id. I was just confused that it was an Alpha sort when it looks like it should be a numeric field. Perhaps it is categorized as an Alpha field even though it contains numbers. I don't know if I'll try the adding zeros thing to the 1-9 and 10-99 listings. You are right, I wish MTU had that already built in. Would be one less thing for me to handle right now.

I'm glad there is a way for me to be sure I have the song title and artist listed the same as before on the songs I reload. Whew! This will be quite a process. I do have one more question at this point:

Q1. I understand that MTU changed some of the disc names in Hoster 3.0. I read a post someplace about that, but didn't look into it much, since I had just printed my books with the old names. How do you think that will affect what I am doing now? How have you handled that with your database and songbooks? I'd prefer that my songbooks match the disc names in my database, but maybe that is not possible now with Hoster renaming discs and my having to reload some. I suppose if I have to reload a disc that was renamed by MTU, it will have to have the new name? If so, then it won't match the songbooks that I just printed.

Guess that's about it for now. Thanks again for all your help. You'll probably hear from me again. Oh, by the way.......I'm a chick!! I thought your assumption that I was a guy was kind of cute though. You've been great and very clear in your instructions. Thank goodness for the boards here. Would you believe this hard drive problem happened at my FIRST Hoster show? I had hoped for a glorious night like other Hoster users, since I had been working on getting ready for this since August 1. I had had no problems with anything until my external drive went bad. That is of course the worst thing I could imagine happening. I will certainly understand better how it all works and will get through this problem, if it kills me. Until I can run Hoster, I'll be looking up each song manually (my books now show Book ID for Hoster use) and flipping discs. I want to resolve the reloading issue soon!!

The not techy enough Chick.......Ruth (Nitecat)

[nreel]

Hi Nitecat,

Sorry about the gender comment. I usually keep it neutral but I see I slipped in that last sentence. I almost made it...LOL.

I kind of figured you weren't seeing the file extension names. So, I'm glad my directions worked out.

MSAccess has two Tool Icons to perform a SORT. They are side by side with one icon having a letter A above the letter Z with Down Arrow and the tool tip says SORT ASCENDING. The other Icon is just the opposite with letter Z on top of the letter A with the tool tip saying SORT DESCENDING.

Since the Icons were showing letters and could be used to sort any column, whether or not the column was Numeric, Alpha/Numeric, or Text, I just called it an Alpha Sort.

Yes, adding leading ZEROS is quite tricky when performing a REPLACE function. You want to add 3 Leading ZEROS to all Book Ids from 1 to 10, but you don't want to add 3 Leading Zeros to Book Ids from 100 to 1000, which start with a 1, and so on.

But, if you take the time to get all the Leading ZEROS in the right place, sorting the Book ID column will prove invaluable.

Q1. First, I do not use the MTU SongBook Feature to print my SongLists. However, I think, in your case, you will be OK with your newly printed SongBooks and should not affect your show. It is true that some BRANDS have changed, but the BRAND, if you chose to list them in your SongLists, are only for the Singer's convenience. These BRAND Prefixes have nothing to do with you running your show because you will only be interested in the Book ID Numbers that the Singers give you.

If any BRAND is different upon re-importing, then, this will straighten itself out upon the next Complete SONGBOOK printing that you will, eventually, do.

What you see, when operating Hoster at a show, compared to what the Singer sees in your newly printed SongBooks, will not be in conflict if you run into the situation of a BRAND change. Because, again, you are only concerned with the Book ID numbers...not the BRAND.

You will be the only one to know the difference. For instance, and, I'm not sure what may have changed, but, for example, if the Previous designation for POP HITS ROCK 0410 was PHR0410, and, is listed in your new SongBooks that way, with Book ID 102, now becomes POP HITS MONTHY ROCK 0410 with a designation of PHMR0410, with Book ID 102, you will be the only one to know anything has changed. You will have, still, assigned and IMPORTED this disc on the ORIGINAL Book ID…So, no harm.

My New Year wish is that you will be successful with all your shows using Hoster.

Again, if you want me to straighten out your Songs.MDB by adding ZEROS where needed, just say the word. I've done this several times over the past year and a half that I've been using Hoster and I have become quite proficient.

Norm

[Nitecat]

Norm,


I now have Access. Purchased the upgrade version last night and loaded it. All fine there. I can now open the songs.mdb file and have done the sort on Book ID. I really do think it would be much easier if they sorted correctly (with those leading zeros in place). Can you give me instructions on how to do the replace on these to get the zeros as they should be or is it too complicated? I hate to have you spend any more time working on this than you already are now with all of your wonderfully detailed posts. I certainly do appreciate the personal attention you are giving me with my problem. I hope MTU appreciates users such as yourself.

I assume that once I get this file into a useable Book ID order, I can widen columns to see all in the field and hide columns I don't care to see (can I delete them?), then print the file. When I have both my original songs.mdb file and the new songs.mdb file with the 38 gigs of songs I had backed up printed out, then I will manually compare the two printouts line by line and determine what I need to reload and what Book IDs to use, etc. Does this sound correct?

Will wait to hear from you before I do anything more on my end. Thanks. Ruth (Nitecat)

[nreel]

If you haven't used Access, it will be exceptionally hard to explain.

Also, do you have WinWord?

WinWord allows more Replace features that are not possible in Access.

Assuming you do, here's what you will do. Keep in mind this is a way I found to do it. There may be others who are more knowledgeable and can do it easier.

OK...you asked for it...here it is...Good Luck !!

Task=Make all BookIDs 6-Place numbers by adding leading ZEROS. 6-Place Number will allow for BookIDs up through 9,999 (9,999 Discs), which no KJ will ever have in my lifetime.
Reason=So that one may SORT on the BookID Column in the SONGS.MDB and cause all the BookIDs to be in ORDER.

You may want to make a Backup copy of your Songs.MDB so that, if you make any mistake on the one that you are modifying, you can restore with the Backup and start over.

Open WinWord...do not CLOSE
Open Access...do not CLOSE

ACCESS 1 STEPS
.1. Open Songs.mdb
.2. Double Left-Click the SONGS TABLE to OPEN and MAXIMIZE the window.
.3. Left-Click on BookID Column Header to Highlight the BookID Column.
.4. Left-Click the A/Z (with Down Arrow) Icon to SORT ASCENDING.
.5. Left-Click RECORDS.
.6. Left-Click FILTER.
.7. Left-Click ADVANCED FILTER SORT (Field should be filled-in with
.....BookID/Ascending).
.8. In the CRITERIA Field, Enter: Like "???"
.9. Right-Click Mouse anywhere in the solid Grey area.
10. Left-Click APPLY FILTER SORT.
11. Left-Click on BookID Column Header to Highlight the BookID Column.
.....(All Filtered Records should be Highlighted.)
12. Right-Click anywhere in the Highlighted area.
13. Left-Click COPY.

WINWORD STEPS
.1. Left-Click on the WinWord Icon that is located on the TASKBAR.
.....(WinWord should Maximize and show a BLANK DOCUMENT 1 -- We'll use this Doc.)
.2. Right-Click anywhere on the Blank Document.
.3. Left-Click PASTE.
.4. Left-Click BookID, located at the TOP of the single column Table, to
.....Highlight the Table with the words BookID in it. To HIGHLIGHT this table,
.....you must place the CURSOR in the LEFT MARGIN just to the LEFT of the
.....TABLE that contains the word BookID and Left-Click.
.5. Right-Click in the HIGHLIGHTED area.
.6. Left-Click CUT.
.7. Left-Click the COLUMN of Tables to HIGHLIGHT.
.8. Left-Click EDIT that is located on the TOP BAR.
.9. Left-Click REPLACE
10. Left-Click MORE
11. Left-Click USE WILD CARDS
12. Enter in the FIND WHAT Field: <(1)
13. Enter in the REPLACE WITH Field: 0001
14. Click REPLACE ALL -- If asked if you want to search the remaining Doc.
.....Answer NO.
15. Repeat steps 12-14 but change FIELDS to all single numbers from 2 thru 9
......IMPORTANT - The FIND Field MUST MATCH THE REPLACE Field
......DO NOT GET THIS WRONG !!
......... ex. <(2) and 0002
...............<(9) and 0009 and every number between.
16. Left-Click anywhere in the WHITE area of the Document.
.....(Column should still be Highlighted)
17. Right-Click in the Highlighted area.
18. Left-Click CUT.

ACCESS 2 STEPS
.1. Left-Click MSAccess Icon on TASKBAR
.2. Left Click SONGS:TABLE (BookID should still be Highlighted)
.3. Right-Click anywhere in the HIGHLIGHTED area.
.4. Left-Click PASTE
.5. Left-Click YES to accept the changes.


Repeat process ONCE if you have less than 100 BookIDs and TWICE if you have more than 100 BookIDs following the procedure below.

If ONCE, you will add ONE additional QUESTION MARK (?) in STEP 8 of ACCESS 1 STEPS.
.......(In the CRITERIA Field, Enter: Like "????")
A N D,
You will DECREASE the number of ZEROS in STEP 13 of WINWORD STEPS by ONE.
.......(Enter in the REPLACE WITH Field: 001)

If TWICE, first complete the one above, then, continue with this.
Add TWO additional QUESTION MARKS (??) in STEP 8 of ACCESS 1 STEPS.
.......(In the CRITERIA Field, Enter: Like "?????")
A N D,
You will DECREASE the number of ZEROS in STEP 13 of WINWORD STEPS by TWO.
.......(Enter in the REPLACE WITH Field: 01)


Hopefully, these steps will be easy to follow.

Norm

[Nitecat]

Norm,

First of all......happy new year!! Also, thanks for the wonderfully detailed answers that you have given me. You are one great guy! I have made it through New Year's and another night of karaoke (without my Hoster). Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be focusing on figuring out the databases and getting something to compare...then begin the process loading my missing music.

Wow, that find and replace stuff looks complicated. I hope I can manage. I did have a bright idea today and wondered what you thought. I thought that if I opened the songs.mdb file in Windows Explorer and could somehow print the list there, I would have the list of discs by manurfacturer and could then compare to the file in Access. If this is somehow possible, I could sort the Access file by Manufacturer also (not sure if this is possibel). Anyway, it was a thought and my main problem is if you open a folder with Windows Explorer, is there some way to print the list of files. I figure there surely is. I haven't managed to find out how to do this yet. Any ideas? I'm trying to figure out a way to avoid adding those zeros to the Book Ids in Access....lol. If this makes no sense, it's because I been running karaoke all night and celebrating the new year. Any thoughts? Norm, I know you seem to be night owl like myself. Ruth (Nitecat)

[Nitecat]

Norm,

Your instructions about adding the zeros worked great. I used Microsoft Word instead of WinWord. Not sure if that's what you meant by WinWord or if WinWord is different software. Anyway, I think I got it all done correctly. I have the file of my original 53 gigs with Book Ids fixed and sorted by Book ID. It is about finished printing as I write this. Getting late, so am heading to bed once it finishes. Tomorrow I'll do the same with the 38 gigs of songs backed up and begin the comparison. Unfortunately, I go back to work on Monday, so will only have evenings to reload the lost music. I'll keep you posted. I would have never figured out how to fix those Book Ids without your help. You're a whiz!! I actually won't mind having a list of songs in order by Book Id anyway. Could come in handy, particularly until I can try using Hoster again, since my discs are in manufacturer order. All for now. At least I feel like things are progressing. Thanks again. Ruth (nitecat)

[nreel]

Nitecat,
Greetings in the New Year!!

I've been very busy these last few days as I see you have been as well.

Yes, night owl here too...Karaoke, you know.

Yes, you can sort by Disc Number, if you prefer…That will work. But, you probably Imported, some or part of, your Disc library in order. By having the Book IDs SORTED, you will be able to have Hoster AUTO INCREMENT the Book Ids...if only for 5 or 10 or 20 discs that are sequential in your library.

Of course, sorting by Book ID will only help if you Imported your Discs in, somewhat of a, sequential order.

I imported my SoundChoice Spotlight Series starting with 8100 and ending with 8900. Since I don't own all the SC Spotlight Series, my, somewhat sequential, order may look like this:
8105,8115,8125,8136...etc. 8115 comes sequentially comes after 8105, in my library, because I do not have disc8106 to 8114.

My Book ID Roots for these discs are:
8105-110
8115-111
8125-112
8136-113

So, if I scrutinized my missing list by BRAND, I may end up Importing in this order: (Unless, after scrutinizing, I performed an additional step of putting the missing Discs in sequential order.)
8115-111
8105-110
8136-113
8125-112

I will not be able to let Hoster AUTO-INCREMENT the Book IDs. As soon as I hit the BookID ROOT, Hoster will automatically fill-in BOOKID ROOT 110, because it is the next one available. So, I would end-up comparing the BOOKID to what Brand/Disc#, anyway, in order to find out what goes with what.

I would want to take advantage of every time saving tool available and HOSTER'S AUTO-INCREMENT BookID is one of those Time-Saving TOOLS.

I see from your last POST that you were able to get the leading Zeros added. Good Job!!!!!!!!!!

My instructions weren't in vain !

Happy New Year !!

Norm

[Nitecat]

Norm,


Help! I knew things were going too well last night. I printed out 244 pages with 083908 as the final Book Id listed. I think everything looked OK and believe this printout is of my original 53 gigs of music. I have now spent the entire afternoon trying to get a similar file to print of the 38 gigs of music I was able to save in order to have a comparison. I did a "Build Songs Database" and assumed the songs.mdb file would be a new file with the 38 gigs. The file was the same size as the old file though, so I knew something was wrong. I then tried deleting the songs.mdb and the songs_backup.mdb files and doing a "Build Songs Database". The songs.mdb file was now smaller (1248 KB vs. 2264 KB) so I assumed I was on the right track. Funny thing is that when I follow the steps on the new smaller file to add the zeros, I keep coming up with the same number of Book Ids as before. I am at a loss trying to understand this and what I'm doing wrong. I thought I would be able to have one printout with all the original 53 gig Book Ids and another printout with the Book Ids for the 38 gig I saved. I figured I would compare the two lists and know what to begin importing.

Any ideas about what I am doing wrong or need to do?? I'm stuck at this point and don't know what to do next. When I talked about sorting by manufacturer, I was thinking of using the list that comes up when locating the file using Windows Explorer. It seems to be in manufacturer order, but I can't figure out how to print it. At this point, I'm trying to get the two lists I mentioned in the first paragraph for comparison by Book Id.

I'm not sure I totally followed your previous post. I did not designate certain sequences of Book Ids for certain brands. Most of my discs are filed in order by brand, but are not totally. I just started loading discs with how I have them filed and let Hoster assign the Book Id. However, discs in packs like Chartbuster Essential 450 were done separately, so they would not fall in sequence with my other individual Chartbuster discs. Maybe I should have thought that through better at the time. Live and learn. I sort of assumed that when I begin reloading what I've lost that I'd have to enter each Book ID to be sure it's what I want.

I hope I have given you enough info. to help me. It's probably getting confusing to follow all my posts. I know I'm confused, at this point anyway. I'd sure like to get started loading music, but can't till I know what to load. AAaarrghh. How frustrating.

Thanks for any help you can give me. Ruth (nitecat)

[Nitecat]

Thanks so much to Norm who was kind enough to call me at home and resolve my problem. Of course it was a silly little oversight of mine (being a new user of Access).....I was looking at the last Book Id in each file, which happened to be the same and therefore thought the file was the same. Instead, with Norm's instruction, I learned to look at the total number of records showing at the bottom left corner. Turns out my 2 files were fine and I was able to proceed with comparing them to determine what Book Ids I was missing.

Just to let Norm and others know, after making the comparison, it turns out that the kma files missing were everything alphabetically after a certain point. This means that when I was backing up one external drive to the other and it quit midway, it was backing up the list of kma files alphabetically by file name. I could find what I have left by using Windows Explorer and looking at the folder directory where the files are saved plus using the 2 Access printouts of my songs.mdb files (file before and file after crash) sorted by BookId. The 2 Access printouts are also a great help to be sure the song title and artist names are the same as what I had before while reloading the lost kma files, which I am now in the process of doing.

I would suggest to everyone that they not only back up their kma files, but also have a backup of their songs.mdb file. Having my original song.mdb file has been a great help.

Norm, I hope what I am doing at this point is correct. I created a new folder on my external drive called reloaded songs. I changed where I am importing my files to this folder. I did this thinking that it would give me a way to keep the reloaded files separate for now. Just trying to be careful in case there is some need for me to have them separate from the others. I also thought it would make it simpler when I back up the reloaded songs up to my other external drives to not have them mixed in my the others. It will only be the songs in this folder that will need to be backed up because the others in my songs folder are already backed up.

One thing confuses me now, should I have deleted my songs.mdb file or any other files before I started importing the lost songs? I am importing on my show comnputer. It still contains the orginal songs.mdb file from before I lost part of the kma files from my external drive.

Here's what I was thinking.....once I'm sure I have all of my kma files again, I will move the reloaded songs so all my songs are in one folder on my external drive called songs. I will point Hoster to this folder. Then.....do I delete songs.mdb and rebuild the database? Is there anything else I should delete before rebuilding? Does this sound like it will get me back to where I need to be? Do I need to delete the artist and title rtf files and do a recreate on them? As you know, I've already printed my books and want the rtf files to match what was printed and I'd want Hoster to be set so that if I buy new music, it knows what to print for new release pages.

Guess that's all for now. I still get confused about how everything works together....the Access database, the kma files, rebuilding the songs database, what the other files are for like temp1.mdb etc. etc. In reading the boards here I finally figured out that if I edit the song title and artist name before importing a song, there is a header in the KMA file that retains this information? Is this correct? Rebuilding the songs database should take the header info. from my KMA files to use for the song title and artist name? I keep worrying about losing what I have edited on these. Guess that only happens if I lose the kma file as I did when my drive crashed and I wasn't totally backed up?

I realize this is long. Hope it makes sense. Let me know if what I have said is correct, if I'm doing anything wrong and/or if you have suggestions.

Again, thanks a bunch to Norm for saving me on this disaster of mine. Norm, it was great talking to you!! I owe you. Ruth