AVI Issues

[AliGeeJay]

I have a collection of AVI files that will no longer play.

They were playing fine a week ago but now what ever player I try it is not recognized. If I play an AVI file through VLC it plays a CD track.

The file sizes are consistent with the normal size that the files should be - 650 - 700 Mb.

If I try to run them through an AVI repair tool it is saying that they are not an AVI file.

The PC has been scanned with MalWareBytes and has come back clean and so has the virus scan.

Unfortunately these are all stored on my backup external HDD so if I have lost these I have lost 5 years of video.

As I said this is happening to all files that are on the external drive. Any files still on my internal drives are playing correctly. If I copy a file from the external HDD to an internal drive it will not play.

I have copied a file from the external drive to a USB stick and tried it on another PC and it fails to play. VLC states the the file is UNDF.

Any help that I can get will be gratefully received.

[Baldrick]

Does other files on your backup hdd work fine? The entire hdd could be corrupt.

[jman98]

I agree with Baldrick and suspect the same. Five years is a long time in the life of a disk drive, especially if it's being used all the time. I know some will post how drives they have used for 10 years now still work fine but I can only tell you that I've had really bad luck with disk drives and I personally consider them to be completely unreliable for anything I "must have".

If you're going to use disk drives for storing video files, you should learn from this. Have a 2nd drive of equal or larger size that you keep in storage simply as a backup. Attach it to your computer from time to time, copy your files to it, and then remove it properly when the copying is done. Store it in a closet in an anti-stat bag. Consider changing the disk drive to a brand new model every few years as well to avoid problems.

[redwudz]

Have you tried to run error checking on the external drive? R click the drive and select 'Properties>Tools>Error checking'. But it sounds like the individual files are damaged, so I'm not sure how much this may help.

It does seem a bit odd that none of the files will play. Most times the file structure of the drive is what is damaged. Corrupting all the files is a bit more difficult. I would also see if you can open one in MediaInfo. If not, then they may have major damage. Those AVI 'repair' programs usually just try to fix the headers on the files, not actually repair the whole file. But if VLC doesn't recognize them, you do have a problem as it can often play corrupted videos.

I'm guessing you have a USB interface to the external drive. If all else fails, you might pull the drive out of the external enclosure and plug it into one of your internal hard drive connections. That would take the external interface out of the loop in case it's a USB problem and also give you better access to the drive and other repair/diagnostic programs.

And welcome to our forums.

[AliGeeJay]

Have you tried to run error checking on the external drive? R click the drive and select 'Properties>Tools>Error checking'. But it sounds like the individual files are damaged, so I'm not sure how much this may help.

Many thanks for this invaluable advise. I have scanned the disk and it has "returned to life". I am in the process of copying the data to another disk.

And welcome to our forums.

As for joining the forum, I'm glad I did. I am now able to get back that which I thought was lost based on the advice given.

[redwudz]

Some times you get lucky. I've learned to back up hard to replace files after a couple of hard drive failures in the past. Failures can happen with any HDD, irregardless of the quality.