MOG

Part of me dreads something like this happening ... but another part of me seems like if it happened, I'd just find myself going through my cassettes/vinyl/CDs to rediscover lost music. I'm sorry to read of your 'loss', but I'm REALLY glad to hear you've kept your head up and kept your ears surrounded by the sweet swell of vinyl.

leo kottke on vinyl at a thrift store? ok, i guess you guys have better thrift stores out west. congrats on the revelation... sounds like your gonna make it.

That is really unfortunate. You may still want to look in to investing in doing that data restore... it may seem pricey right now, but so is jumping in to an analog revolution--buying vinyl will add up quick, records are harder to find (for what you want), etc.

Just something to consider :)

I have hundreds of records. I am not worried about spending money, 'cause i've already got the vinyl I want to listen to! I can't afford data restore, so I can start saving for it now, but it will still take a long time. Thus I am just going to listen to my records, and some mix cds...

... sad... I am both a vinyl junkie of old, and an iPod addict, of lately, and I feel your pain...

A possible positive spin apart from your re-appreciation of the LP: Losing your vinyl (say in a fire) would have been the worse accident.

Yeah, lame consolation.

i'm with etc! the thrift stores I've found here in Virginia suck for music. A Leo Kottke _live_ vinyl is such a treasure. I can relate to your pain - I lost so many mp3s back in my great hard drive crash of 2002. I don't even remember what I lost anymore. It did force me to discover & re-discover old favorites, and I coincidentally started going to more concerts hehe. Speaking of which, I had a great time when I went to see Leo with Mike Gordon last fall.

I understand.. I'm glad you have vinyl and mixed cds to listen to!

Oh that blows. So sorry to hear about that Kate. I think I would have a heart attack. At least you live in an area where you can find good cheap vinyl. It's mostly bad gospel music and instructional records from the 70's in my town. I once had all of my music and books stolen from me. I know it wasn't like losing a loved one but there was a huge amount of anxiety and confusion over it. Take care.

If I had someone steal my books I think I would have a nervous breakdown! How the heck did someone steal all yours? Did they hire a moving company?

Right on... I just put some Leo Kottke on my iPod the other day.

No. I was in a bad place and I had to move out and I didn't go to my apartment for 3 days cause I was having fun. Anyway long story short my room in the apartment was ransacked and everything of value was gone. Around a $15k collection of comics. I still get choked up every once in a while about it. I did manage to not have 34 cd's in the place and all of my regular comics stuck in my mom's storage. It's been 9 years now though. I'm mostly over it.

I think we should all take up a "collection." If every MOGger sent Kate just one mix CD, she would have a pretty sweet little pile o' music in no time. Of course it wouldn't replace what has been lost, but might get her on her way.....

I'm really sorry to hear about your hard drive. You're handling it better than I ever could. Your revolution is admirable.

I feel your pain but in a slightly different way. My most prized possession, my record player/8 track/radio/cassette player has died and according to most it is not fixable. My Neil Young vinyl stares me in the face at night but I can't bring myself to buy a new one. I love my vintage POS and want it back.

I found my vinyl packed away in the basement the other day and started listening to them. It was the first time my kids had ever experienced such an event. CDs and iPods are so durable and forgiving that kids have no appreciation for the care that must be bestowed upon records if you actually want to listen to them again. Maybe it was the times or the originality of the music back then but vinyl comes across as more intimate and honest.

I love you Kate!

Dude, Alison, I miss you!!!

How much money are you talking for the data restore?

I have been quoted $500-$2500. The final price won't be given to me until I actually send it to a Data Recovery place. I can afford about $200 right now and that's it :(

wow.

Sorry to hear it, if there is anything you are missing greatly and I have it, I could throw it up onto multiply for the time being.

Ouch. You seem to be taking it very well. You losing your collection even hurts me a little - that mix you made for mog wars has some of my (now) favorites and I have passed along quite a few of them.

I appreciate it Rawkkiddo! I'll let you know if there's anything I am in dire need of. MOG is the only place around where people understand my music-related pain.

Vinyl is a beacon of light in the dark shadows cast by file loss. I lost a significant portion of my files about a month ago. It was like being kicked in the balls. The pain didn't last that long though. I feel like I am in a (forced) musical rebirth because I'm spending more quality time with my records. Vive le Renaissance!

p.s.: you can get file recovery software for pretty cheap, and as long as you haven't done a bunch of saving/downloadinge tc on the same hard disk as your files were on you should be able to retrieve some. yo can even run free trial versions to see what the software is able to locate before you spring for the full version.

damn. can't you recover a bunch of files from your ipod?

i agree with the vinyl, though. that's what i miss most about being in france - my vinyl is in mpls.

and i guess there's much love for leo kottke here, huh? weird because my wife dated his son before we started dating. i just never thought he was that popular...

Hey does MOG still have a snapshot of what your collection was from Mog-O-Matic?

fistula ::: good idea - i bet it does. when i wasn't online for three months, it kept what was last recorded.

kate ::: i guess you would just have to add your music collection widget to your profile. then any moggers could send you files via email or mediafire or multiply. but it sounds like you're doing ok with your vinyl...

Yeah, I have a file on my computer of what was in my entire collection, so that I can keep track of what i'm missing. I guess I will add my music collection widget back up. It was making me sad having it up there!

just wait until you start getting links to where you can re-download the album... =)

You gotta have that widget up there. It's still a part of your Mog personality. Glad you got a list of what you have. I'd go berserk if I had to try to remember it all.

i always said that if someone stole my books i dont know if i would be happy or sad. it would either mean that criminals were now interested in reading, or it would mean that readers were now interested in being criminals... either way, ive read them all and as long as the thief was reading it i guess that means its being put to good use.

Is there a breeze in your apartment? That was my romance with the needle. Swinging back and forth, surfing up and down on the groove, despite the breeze. I could take a sit and enjoy both, but feeling the vulnerability of the medium to its environment made me feel some kinship.

Yeah, the delicacy of records has always excited me. The fact that I am listening to something sometimes as much as 50 years old, wondering who else enjoyed it before me, did they dance, did they cry, was there a breeze?

horray for your analog revolution!!! i am right there with you! i love my vinyl, and my tapes! (CAN has lovely vinyl) i even have johnny o's truth and rights on vinyl. records rule the world around me.... so sorry to hear about your files though. that does suck in itself.

S0 sorry about your loss. ivylander's idea of sending you mixes is a good one. Now I've got to back up what's not backed up on my drive.

http://www.bizrate.com/searchcat_id--1keyword--cd+albumslp--1mkt_id--17076636__sfsk--0.html

I had another thought. I don't know if you buy anything from the iTunes music store but they'll let you download the tracks you have bought in the past again as a one time back up. It doesn't seem like you buy from there but it's just a thought.

eMusic lets you download stuff that you've bought from them indefinitely if you buy from there ... I'd be up for sending you a mixed CD to tide you over too.

that's such a bummer Kate. I just found you and I was thrilled by your music taste. I was looking forward to seeing what you added to your collection from day to day. I'm in the process of backing up all my music to this - http://www.mp3tunes.com/ Only 48 more days to go! They are giving away unlimited storage at random and I got upgraded but then found out that unlimited doesn't include file size which is capped at 10 megs.

When I started ripping all of my CDs to mp3 I found it was actually easier to download the mp3 versions from file sharing things like bit torrent. I would just queue up a few hundred albums and let it run while I was at work or sleeping. Since I own the albums and I am allowed to make mp3 versions, it seems to me like the file sharing part was a legal albeit convoluted way of converting. If you have any peer to peer software you can grab mp3 versions of anything I have that you are trying to replace.

I do have about 5 albums I bought on Itunes... thanks for the tip, Fistula! Thanks for all the advice and goodwill everyone! I've always been hesitant about using P2P/file sharing software but it may be something I will need to look into. I am slowly rebuilding with stuff from friends... and already my music library looks much different than before.

I feel for you, Kate, I really do Back in 2002 I lost the entire contents of my London flat. I'd moved out of the city a week or so earlier, and was waiting to ship all my stuff to the new address when my old abode was cleaned out.

My neighbours thought the thieves (three of them, very well organised) were actually the official movers -and even made them cups of tea when they were loading their van! Basically, I lost about 300 books, something in the region of 4,000 CDs, a smattering of vinyl (including a dozen or so irreplacable Elvis Costello bootlegs - sob!), a lovely round-backed acoustic guitar and a monster widescreen TV.

Chums who work in the music biz helped me replace a lot of the CDs for free, but for a while it was like I was starting my collection all over again. It's been fun picking up stuff for a second time, occasionally giving me the thrill I felt when I made my first purchases so many years ago, but overall the experience really sucked.

I don't think it's healthy for any of us to be defined by our possessions, but we can't help but be defined by the emotions thoses possessions (especially music and the printed word) instill in us.

You must have walked around in a daze for weeks after that experience, Terry. If I was just a casual peruser of music, I wouldn't be as distraught by this, but you're right about the emotional ties. There are some things that I probably won't hear again, like the incredibly rare Dylan bootlegs I got from an ex, but the memories that go along with the songs are forever imprinted in my brain. Possessions do not make a life, they just enhance it.

Hi Kate Don't know if this helps. I had a client who brought his Son's MacBook into work and asked me to look at it for him, as the drive had died with all his music collection on. We picked up a £20.00 USB external drive 'enclosure' from Amazon, took the drive out of the mac and in to the enclosure and 'bingo' we could access the music when we plugged it in to another computer. And the moral of this story - sometimes a drive might not boot to the operating system, but you can stick it in an external enclosure and it will work sufficent to copy the files. However, I don't know how trashed your drive is and you may have it 'external' already. After that fix I got so paranoid about my collection I now have everything stored external to my main computer and also have a back-up as well.

It's the techo-nightmare, Kate. Heartbreaking. Although I love the vinyl, too, and rely on the popular CD format, I wish you all the best luck in your restoration. (If I happen to be in the office in the near future and schlepping my machine with me, feel free to approach with a memory stick.)

Just remembered... I've heard that sometimes you can stick your hard drive in the freezer for a couple of hours and then try starting it back up again and it might work. Another thought.

Oh, Kate. I'm sorry to hear that. Silver lining is that it made you love vinyl even more, as I understand :)

I recently backed up all my music on DVDs, because I felt that my pc was (is) coming to an end. I would, without a doubt, lose the marbles if something happened to my music, movies, photographs, books and my paintings. Art is sacred & usually irreplaceable. Clothes and the rest, I can take them out and burn them myself.

Like Kevin said, if there is anything you need, just drop us a note on multiply :)

Analogically yours, Anna :)

Robin, I did try a new enclosure, but the actual drive isn't spinning, so it definitely wasn't the power source. I got a mogmail from Proscriba, who gave me the name of a data recovery place in SF that only charged him $250, so I will probably end up crossing my fingers and using that place.

Hi Kate! Data loss is one of my single biggest fears. All my listening music, all the music I've written, my artwork, etc, every bit is digital. I'm lucky to have various backup options, and I really feel for those not lucky enough. So allow me to help ;)

Seeing as you mentioned you like some of my stuff, pop over to my page and any tracks you want (even the ones I charge for), I'll let you have them all at 192kbps. Mail me the list and I'll mail you back a link to my server for download.

Peace

Flood

P.S. I miss the whole 'holding in hands' of vinyl, even CD or MD. Even though I see my stuff via download, I still do a small run of packaged CD's, it's just seems right some how!!

Er......It looks like spam, but my DSL connection crapped out and seems to have caused the above er..... mess. I would like to apologize for my computers behaviour Kate.

Sorry.

• ahem * * shuffle * * looks at feet *

Peace

Flood

IT'S A DARK DAY IN MUSIC LAND MAN

dark and rainy.

I while ago I bought a couple of Flaming Lips reissues, vinyl only, they sound great, and now that I actually have a record player that works I can listen to them. Isn't it funny how everyone you know has a broken turntable, I have two. Glad to see you've been listening to Drive By Truckers.

I know where you are coming from...I just lost everything on my iPod AFTER talking with Apple for almost four hours on the phone. Everything gone. No files on the computer because I have no space to keep iTunes filled up with songs on the hard drive. Just like you...songs that can't be replaced or should I say "files"? Files still don't feel like the real thing compared to staring at a vinyl cover like the back of cereal box.

Like you...the crackle of an LP blaring out of the speakers is an old friend who never lets me down. My comrad my skip on occasion or have a little cue burn but a pal just the same.

Cassettes still rule too!

:=)

a fellow buckminster fuller fan, allright!