Sonar doesn't recognize my saved file.

[whattaguy]

I just reformatted my pc, installed Sonar but can't open my saved file from my other hard drive. I get a message that it cannot recognize the wav file. when i go to the option settings in cakewalk, and go to the far left tab to select my sound card (aardvark 2496), it doesn't save the changes when I open it again...it always defaults to the sound blaster card. my projects is still there, but Sonar just can't read the sounds. I am running XP and Sonar 2.0 XL. I got so frustrated that I reformatted again.

The Aardvark is on the same IRQ as my onboard network card, and I don't know how to change this in bios.

I've reformatted many times before and never had this problem. Any ideas? Thanks.

I don't want to reformat again...

[AlChuck]

Did you save your SONAR file as a normal format file, then move it somewhere?

Normal SONAR files contain MIDI data but no audio data, only pointers to the audio data files, which are normally managed by SONAR and kept in the audio data directory (unless you are using the new file management features that Sonar 2 offers). If you move the file to another drive and then reformatted the original drive, well, there's your answer. You erased all the audio data. The file tries to find it where it expects it and it is not there.

SONAR offers a package file format called the Cakewalk bundle that includes all the audio data along with the regular Cakewalk file. Otherwise it's up to you to identify the WAV files that are associated with a particular project file and back those up yourself manually. (The file management features added in version 2 mostly address this issue -- the older versions stashed the WAV data in files with names that were not obviously associated with any given project, so you would have to find which files in the audio data directory the project was pointing to. Now you can save the audio data files in files with the same basic name as the project and keep them stored in the same directory as the project file, if you want. Or you can continue to let SONAR handle all that for you as before.)

[dachay2tnr]

My take is pretty much the same as Alchuck's. Were the Sonar files saved as .wrk/.cwp files, or as .bun/.cwb files?

If they were saved as .wrk or .cwp files and you didn't back up the audio (.wav's), I think you're SOL.

The other possibility is that on the new install you did not point Sonar to the correct directory where the .wav files are stored. This could be the case if you installed Sonar in a new directory, or if you were using a specific directory in the old install and did not setup the new install in the same way. This one is an easy fix, since you would only need to point the new install to the proper directory.

[blipndub]

Do a search/find for the wav. file that you're missing. Maybe if you're lucky...

.bun = Backup

[moskus]

For the search, try Cakewalks Audio Finder Tool. You can find it here...