recovered files on crashed computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Molinari
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Jason Molinari

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hey...

my computer crashed but i was luckily able to save my .wav files.

first: what are these .pk files that appear next to the .wav files? example acoustic.wav & acoustic.pk?

second: i lost all my sessions (not sure why), so i have to insert all the tracks back into new sessions. problem is that they won't playback in multitrack view but individual tracks play fine in edit view. what gives?

thanks for the help.

jason
 
The .pk files allow rapid loading of the waveforms. The computer doesn't have to scan each track each time to redraw the display.

Your .wav files play back in Edit View because that window is designed for single track playback and editing. In order to play back in Multitrack View, you need the tracks to be part of a session.

The .ses files control the individual tracks and their relation to each other in a session.

Try File/New Session to bring up an empty session, then import each track to it.

This MIGHT allow you to rebuild your sessions without the .ses files, by loading each track individually and lining them up with the others, but I'll bet it's tedious.
 
.pk files

lp...thanks. thanks a lot.

tedious yes. but surely not as tedious as rerecording everything...some as long as over a year ago.

.pk files are a bit over my head; so the next question is: do i need to keep these things? don't need but prudent to keep?

thanks.
jason
 
You dont NEED the .pk files...it just makes loading the sessions faster. They take up very little space so unless its just a MUST to get rid of them...id keep them.
 
found my session files

hey..

i've actually found my session files.

Question the is: can i simply save the session to a data disc and all the corresponding wave files will follow?

Or do i have to save everything (on mulitple discs) to be sure; that is .ses files, .wav files and .pk files?

my computer is dying and i need to get this stuff off.

thanks for the help

jason
 
simply saving the .ses files will not be enough. The .ses file is just a data file that tells CEP/AA where to put the .wavs in the session. If the .wavs arent there, it will prompt you that the track is missing...you click ok and it loads blank tracks. you NEED all your .ses files and .wav files..you can do without the .pk files if you have to...when you reload your sessions, it will make new .pk files.
 
my computer crashed cause my OS did an auto upgrade and M-Audio couldnt handle it BOOM gone. Now I use Firebox but you are lucky you were able to save your music. I could have saved parts of each song but wasnt worth it :(
 
In Multitrack View, go to Insert/Audio: a browser window will come up that you can locate the missing file in (from whatever folder you saved them in) and then "insert" (D'oh!) them into the session.
 
ok...thanks for all the input...but this isn't working at all.

I've restored my computer to when it was working properly and so far so good. but i just can't seem to get my sessions and associated files backed-up to a data cd.

Can anyone take me step by step from the session to backing everything up on disc. I just can't get it to work and the manual is nearly useless. I just can't understand why i can't go "save as", pick the destination (D:cd-rw) and there you go!!! like every other windows program in the world.

Lastly, can someone spell out the relation of all the different files--an analogy maybe; seems like a lot of extra unnecssary stuff that just confuses the ingnorant. example: it doesn't make sense to me that you need a session file yet it's saving associated tracks isn't enough...you still have to save all the wave files too...it's just very confusing.

any detailed help would be great.

thanks.

jason
 
If all of your songs are in seperate folders as they should be...then simply save those folders onto a data disk. use what ever burning software you normally use and there should be an option for making a data disk. just drag and drop those folders into the window.

the .ses file does not contain the .wavs themselves. it only contains the information that tells the software where to put the .wavs in a particular session and what effects to apply to what tracks, panning and volume information...all that stuff. if you dont save the .wav files, then the session file will open, and apply the effects to the appropriate spots where the .wavs should be, but it will not be able to load the .wavs into the tracks.
 
thajeremy said:
If all of your songs are in seperate folders as they should be...then simply save those folders onto a data disk. use what ever burning software you normally use and there should be an option for making a data disk. just drag and drop those folders into the window.

thajeremy...thank you.

umm...ok. how do you do this? what's a folder? i have everything in a Cool Edit file which includes all my sessions, waves, and .pk files. So I have to make individual folders for each session? and where do i get burning software? is it in cool edit or do i have to buy this?

so it's no wonder why I haven't backed this stuff up as of yet...quite a confussing process.

thanks

jason
Click to expand...
 
sounds like you are just very unorganized. For every song you have recorded, you should have a folder titled the same as the song. With-in that folder, you should have all the files associated with that song. Right click in the folder with all of your songs, go down to NEW then go to FOLDER. rename this folder as the title of your first song. then move all the files for that song into that folder. Do this for every song. Then, if you have Win XP, you should be able to drag and drop that folder over your CD-rw Icon in your MY COMPUTER and get the option to "write these files to CD" then just choose to make a data cd.
 
When you save, the dialog box comes up that offers the option of making a new folder. Click on that, name your folder with the song name (or whatever) and tell it to save.
 
will you have to do "save session as" to get the option to make a new folder? I cant remember...but you may...try both ways...you can actually right click on each track, convert to unique copy, then save session, make your new folder and then you will be prompted to save your new files...save them in the new folder...once all your songs are saved...delete all the old stuff....
 
thanks for the input...

still not working though! I've saved all songs and corresponding files to new folders (each folder is the song title). I've double checked this via the hard drive and all folders have the correct .wav files, .ses files and .pk files.

but when i go to open a session and then click on the folder, i get an error box saying "this multitrack session can not be found." if i click on the session files outside of the folders, it opens fine.

so the folders have all the correct stuff, yet they don't open. what now?

also, i'm still unable to copy these files as data to a disk; each folder is under 655mb (size of a cd) yet i continue to get a message saying that the folder i want to copy is to big and reduce it's size.

thanks.

jason
 
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