Hello,

I usually archive big projects to hard disks, this seems to be the most efficient way for large projects, some multi-gig tape drives cost too much as opposed to just buying a hard disk which is fast and quite cheap per GB.

I have a problem though with one project that I have archived recently to a 160GB Seagate hard disk (ST3160215A Made in China).

The project size was approx 130GB and has been archived to this drive about month ago, a few days ago I needed to retrieve some AVI (Pinnacle) Video files (for another project) however most files on that drive now playback with dropouts (they appear as single frame droputs when played back)! Please see two example screen shots:

http://www.box.net/shared/u0xnq22m2q

The dropouts seem to always happen in the same places (not random) but I know that they obviously weren’t there when archived. This unfortunately happens to most of the archived files.

The question is: Has anyone had this happen to them and if so, was there anything that could be done to correct it?

Regards,
Jack

Here is feedback from Seagate (my answers to them in Blue)

On 3/19/07, DiscSupport@seagate.com <DiscSupport@seagate.com> wrote:
Do these artifacts occur consistently in the same places during multiple
playbacks?

Yes

How do you store the drive? Could a magnetic field have come close to the
drive?

On a specific shelf, it is very unlikely a magnetic field came in contact.

Did you review the entire footage before storing the drive? Could it have
been something that happened during capture?

Before archival, all the footage was 100% clean (I had worked with this footage on my other Seagate HDs, however I did not review the footage after I have copied it to this "archive" HD. When I archive I copy all and then do a select all and look at properties for Size so that Source and Destination matches exactly byte-for-byte and they did.

A faulty data cable can cause data corruption. You might change out your
cable.

When I bought the HD I got two exactly the same models and one of the HDs did not work with my USB to IDE cable properly but the other was fine! I had taken it back and distributor had no problem using that cable in either drive, once I got back home it started to work leaving me a bit confused and I assumed a minor glitch... somewhere? Here is the cable I reference to: http://www.dansdata.com/rdriver.htm

Try copying the footage to another drive and playback to see if the issue
continues.

I have tried that and the problem copies itself to another drive which unfortunately means that the footage is permanently damaged has glitches. I did however also try;

1, to copy another 10GB file to the problem drive from another (this time using a proper internal HD cradle) and the transfer was ok.

2, also tried to run the latest SeaTools (DOS ver) from within the HD cradle and short test was ok and long test seemed to end abruptly by rebooting the PC. This gives me less faith in the drive again.

I recommend testing this drive again with new captured footage, and see if
it does the same thing. You may want to format the drive first.

I will try that, I have also copied all the footage to another drive just to save all the footage (even though it has glitches) and will re-format and do more transfers.


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Seagate's response to my above Blue answers:

Did you visually check the footage after copying it to this drive.
Matching file sizes will not necessarily catch differences.

It is possible that the artifacts were introduced during the archiving
process by the equipment or cables used at that time. This would be
consistent with the fact that you've copied a 10GB file to the drive and
there was no similar data corruption.

SeaTools might have crashed during the full test due to either drive or
controller issues. You might try testing it on another system. You might
try a full test with the other drive as well to make sure it's not just
SeaTools having an problem with your controller.

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Update to follow (comments welcome) ...