Reading External Hard Drive

[micbob4]

Ok Ive posted to threads trying to get help on why my Backup External Hard Drive won't work. I copied the files over from my current external Hard Drive and when I finished they looked Identical but when I connected the Backup External Hard Drive to my laptop and selected the drive its located on on hoster and clicked build database it didnt work. The build database said successful but when I selected a song and tried to add it to play list an error appeared saying Hoster must shutdown do I want to send a report. I'm sorry if my last two postings were confusing but I'm unsure of whats going on and because I know how Knowledgable most of your are in this forum I felt someone could help. Should I just delete the files off of the new External and re-try copying them again? I'm assuming it must have something to do with the file extension. something must have went wrong during the transfer. Do you have to do something different if the type of External Hard Drive is different? Any Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, micbob

[bobcox- with the Lord]

hook up your ext drive open explorer, go to your ext drive, you should see file folder, double click to open, you should see all of your kma files, now look at the address bar at the top. that is the address you need to buld songs database, it should look like this.
C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Hoster\Songs
if you have to open folder twice to see your kma files then it may look like this. C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Hoster\Songs\Songs
Hope This Is Some Help. Bob



Dosnt matter what brand hard drive, it just stores the files.

[micbob4]

Thanks for replying Bob, THe address appears as you indicated and everything works fine when I build database with current External Hard Drive but when I connect the Backup External I get that error message. I'm wondering if something went wrong during the copying of the file. Thanks, Bob

[MTUSUPPORT]

Make sure that the backup drive has the EXACT same drive letter as your Original, unless you go to the Tools menu (under Hoster)\Build Songs Database and change the information to the new drive letter and then rebuild the songs Database. Then it should work fine.

[micbob4]

Thank You MTU for your reply, After I plugged both external drives into my laptop I opened both drives (E and F) my existing hoster music files were on the F drive so I right clicked the mouse click selected all and clicked copy. Then I click in the E drive box and click paste then it took about an hour and 1/2 to copy over. Everything seemed fine. After it finished I click tools in Hoster selected build database and select file. File box opened I click on E drive and folder "Karaoke music" and click bulid database it finished saying successfully backup (something to that extent) but when I tried to play a song an error page appeared asking if I wanted to send a report and that hoster would have to close. There were two items in the existing F drive a folder labeled Karaoke and when you opened it there where all the song files and a file labeled hoster.hst when I clicked it about six songs dropped in the hoster play list. Should I have just opened the Karaoke file and then selected all and copied into a folder on the other drive or does it sound as if I did it right and something just went wrong during copying? If so should I delete the file and try again? Thanks, Bob

[micbob4]

Well I tried deleting the file off of the new external Hard Drive and recopying but this time windows had to scan the new hard drive a found bad sector in Karaoke/dk039.7 a fixed but again when I would build database selecting the new drive E it indicated everything was successful but as soon as I selected a song windows said hoster encountered an error and wanted to know if I wanted to send a report. I wish someone could explain what I'm doing wrong. I bought this external Hard Drive to backup my music and hoster won't except it. I hope I'm not damaging the new Hard Drive by deleting the file and starting over. Please someone give me a recommendation. I'm assuming someone has backup their external HD to another before and can tell me where I'm going wrong. Thanks, Bob

[MTUSUPPORT]

When you say that it states the Songs Backup was successful, do you click Ok here, then it will actually start building the songs database. It then goes through all of this and gets to the point where it comes back and tells you that it has built the database and how many entries are in it? If not, then you are not waiting long enough for it to finish.

If this still doesn't work, then go to the C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Hoster\Databases folder under My Computer. Delete the file in there named Songs.mdb.

Once you delete this, open Hoster and it should start to build the Songs database again. Then see if it will work.

[micbob4]

Originally Posted by MTUSUPPORT

If this still doesn't work, then go to the C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Hoster\Databases folder under My Computer. Delete the file in there named Songs.mdb.

Once you delete this, open Hoster and it should start to build the Songs database again. Then see if it will work.

When I go to the folder databases it is empty I do not see a file named Songs.mdb. My existing Hard Drive is having no problem I go through the same procedures when I switch back to it by building database and I'm able to play songs, but when I use the other drive I get an error I'm very confused. bob

[mindonstrike]

Songs.mdb (it may or may not show the .mdb extension) has to be there someplace. Hoster will not play any songs from any drive without it.

Assuming "C" is your root drive and assuming you installed in the default location, it should be exactly where Support directed you. You can see for sure on the "build songs database" screen, towards the bottom in the box labeled "Songs database destination folder".

Sam

[micbob4]

Thanks Mindonstrike, Yes I can see the link at the bottom of the "build database" menu but it stops at database/ I think its just because thier isn't enough room to see the rest of the link. Your right it must be there because I'm able to play from my original external Hard Drive but when I connect the backup It creates an error report to send to microsoft (I'm sure you have seen this before when other progams experience problems) and says it must shutdown. The only thing that I feel it could be is that when I'm copying over the contents of my current HD something goes wrong causing it to fail. When I do a "build database" it indicates "successful backup ....." not sure of rest. But, it doesn't say what files are contained as mentioned by MTU support. I'm not sure if that is the problem but when I reconnect my current HD and "build database" I receive the same message and that works fine. The second HD is a 160 seagate I didn't format I just plugged in and the laptop excepted it and i copied over from F drive to E drive. I tried to delete and retry but still didn't work and windows ran a check on it because it said there was a bad sector and that it had corrected it. I hope I'm not doing anything to ruin the new HD. Could the problem be that I haven't imported anything directly from hoster to the new HD as I did with the original in order to setup the proper link? Just a thought I do want to thank everyone who is trying to help me. Your vast knowledge is truly appreciative and Hoster is the greatest program out there. In fact I just got two of my friends to buy the program for home use thanks, bob

[mindonstrike]

Hmmm.....

You can try doing a search for songs.mdb through the start button or control F

When you rebuild the database on the new drive how many does it show - same # as old drive? Doe it take a few minutes to build or is it instantaneous?

BTW I don't think windows fixed the bad sector, it justs marks it as bad so it knows to never write anything there again.
If this is a brand new drive with a bad sector already I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the drive is bad.

Sam

[micbob4]

When it builds the database in doesn't do it instantly it pops up a "successful ...." then I click OK and it takes about 1-2 minutes then indicates "successful backup ...." but it never shows # of files or anything showing #'s it just says "successful backup ..." . I'm currently using 2.115 if that makes a difference. Also when I do the same procedure with current HD it works fine. Should I upgrade Hoster could that be the issue? Am I copying the files correctly? If so I will stop focusing on that. Thanks again for your help, bob

[mindonstrike]

Just noticed you are using 2.115 which goes waaay back. Not sure I can remember that far back accurately (I'm an old guy-LOL) but as I recall the the succesful backup message pops up before the database is rebuilt and I do remenmber to get an accurate rebuild you HAVE to delete songs.mdb first.

All that aside the only thing I can think of that would cause hoster to crash with one drive and not the other would be A: a bad hardrive (or going bad). B: corrupt KMA files.

Thanks Mindonstrike, Yes I can see the link at the bottom of the "build database" menu but it stops at database/ I think its just because thier isn't enough room to see the rest of the link.

You should be able to place your cursor in there and then use the left or right cursor keys to move it back and forth.

Sam

[micbob4]

Well I was able to get the backup external HD to work. Apparently it wasn't a problem with copying the file from one HD to the other it was when I tried to
"build database" for the new external under a different drive number. When I hooked up the new external and changed the drive letter to the original one hoster worked fine. What worries me is that if I had my music already on an external HD, purchased Hoster, and then build database would I receive the same error. Will hoster only work by first importing directly through Hoster and staying with the original drive letter? Or was should I have deleted the file songs.mg (not sure what the exact name is) before I build database? If starting from scratch with music already on external HD would Hoster have a problem building database directly from the external HD? Just confused why building database didn't work just by switching drives. bob