Help! My music is disappearing...

Alan · « **on:** 4 Mar 2010, 08:42 pm »

So I wake up this morning to find about half my music files gone. I'm no computer whiz, just a music junkie.

Using WinXL, JR Media. Music spread across three drives (local and 2 external). All three drives are hit, but none totally. Mostly entire albums missing, but some only a few tracks. McAfee found a file called Artemis! in EAC which I deleted. Most files are backed up, but I want to be sure it's safe before plugging in my other externals. I'm thinking this might be a good time to reinstall the OS.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

mitch stl · « **Reply #1 on:** 5 Mar 2010, 03:38 am »

I'm not quite sure why you'd have your music split over three drives. Any particular reason?

How did you determine the files are missing? Are they just not showing in the player's list of music files or have you determined if they are actually missing from a drive?

Finally, do you keep backups? That is critical for anything you keep on a hard drive, whether music, documents or your tax returns. I actually keep two separate backups of my music collection with one of the backup drives kept off premises. With the cost of large USB drives so low these days, it is pretty cheap insurance.

Alan · « **Reply #2 on:** 5 Mar 2010, 04:27 am »

Thanks, Mitch

My external drives are 1tb each, both were almost full (music only). Just a bit of overflow on the c drive, but files are missing from all three. According to Explorer when I check the properties both externals are about half full now (one was so full it wouldn't hold another cd). So it's not that my player doesn't recognize them, they're gone. Yes, have backups but I don't want to plug them in till I have some idea what happened for fear it may happen again. I can see a virus wiping out a whole disk drive but just selected bits? I have no clue.

Any ideas are appreciated.

ltr317 · « **Reply #3 on:** 5 Mar 2010, 05:06 am »

Artemis! is a nasty virus. I had to use a couple of anti-virus programs to remove it. It is the cause of your missing files.

Alan · « **Reply #4 on:** 5 Mar 2010, 04:07 pm »

Thanks, ltr. Wonder why McAfee didn't give me a heads up before it caused damage. And I wonder why it was in the eac folder. Anyway I'll be sure it's gone before plugging in the other externals and rebuilding

ltr317 · « **Reply #5 on:** 6 Mar 2010, 12:08 am »

Quote from: Alan on 5 Mar 2010, 04:07 pm

Thanks, ltr. Wonder why McAfee didn't give me a heads up before it caused damage. And I wonder why it was in the eac folder. Anyway I'll be sure it's gone before plugging in the other externals and rebuilding

I also had McAfee at the time and didn't get a heads up until the virus was embedded in my c: drive in a few places. Not only that, but McAfee couldn't remove it entirely, I had to remove the rest manually.