Computer/music problem

[Bill Grumbine]

Greetings all

Well I used to think that I hated computers. My feelings of animosity were nothing compared to what I have been going through lately. The DVD drive in my laptop went bad. No problem, it was fixed immediately by the company under the warranty program. The only problem was, it wasn't quite fixed all the way. I could read information off CDs, burn CDs, etc, but it would no longer play DVDs without lots of static, jerkiness, etc. I called the technical people, who told me to "reimage" the computer, which is a nice way of saying turn your life into a miserable mess of frustration and murderous intent while you try to get things back to the way they once were.

Most of the stuff is finally back to normal, but I just discovered that none of my music will play. Apparently all my licenses were "reimaged" into vapor when foolish me backed up the music but not the licenses, not realizing that they were not in the same place (or in any other place that I looked for stuff that needed backing up).

So on to my question. Does anyone know how I can go about recovering these licenses, or making this stuff work again short of throttling some richly deserving person who thinks this stuff up? Or, do I have to go and download (and pay) for all this stuff again?

Thanks.

Bill

[Brad Schafer]

this is the standard microsoft fix. reboot or reinstall. horse feathers.

first off, what kind of laptop? how much memory? how big is the hard drive? and what program are you using to play DVDs?

i've seen similar things happen with other machines, and it's inevitably due to one or more of the following:

a) a fragmented hard drive (and possibly split page file)
b) too much crap (or malware) running at the same time
c) a memory-poor environment (possibly due to (b) ...)
d) a driver problem

to fix (a), delete everything in your temp area and run the disk defragger.

to fix (b), run AdAware and then review other stuff you might have loaded and slim down a little.

to fix (c), make sure you don't have malware running (by running AdAware), and then get rid of unnecessaries (like multiple browser windows). if you've got less than 256MB memory, you might be looking at an upgrade.

to fix (d), make sure your driver is up to date. it's possible that the replacement DVD is from a different vendor and is acting up because it doesn't like the driver that was previously installed.

holler if you want help walking thru it,

b

[Ian Abraham]

Horray for DRM :(

Bill, what company was the music downloaded from? And does their web page give any info on recovering lost downloads. There must be a way as hard disks die / need to be re-imaged every day.

Ian

[Vaughn McMillan]

Bill, I second Ian's comments (and sentiments about DRM). Check with whoever you downloaded the music from to see what to do. You're surely not the first this has happened to.

Brad, on initial reading, I didn't see how a fragmented drive would have anything to do with music license avaliability -- it doesn't. But then I re-read Bill's post, and agree that the behavior he was trying to fix could be caused by fragmentation* (and the other things you mentioned). I also agree with your list as a general clean-up that's good maintenance, even if someone's not having problems.

- Vaughn

* I've been in the fragmentation business (actually the defragmentation business) for about 15 years, so I know quite a bit about the nuts and bolts of it.

[Brad Schafer]

Vaughn- i'm not convinced this is a license problem ... it smells more like a driver buffering problem to me, but there wasn't enough info in Bill's post to be certain.

my thot process: a replacement player could mean a newer version of same unit (firmware update), or a model from different supplier altogether. either would require a driver mod. licenses, on the other hand, tend to be binary entities ... you either work or you don't.

{begin geek commentary}
i've seen mulitple instances where disk access time causes jitter in playback. some pgms load temp space on a hard drive rather than attempting to stream from a dvd unit ... if free space is "shattered", this causes extents (& therefore window turns) as the o/s (if you want to call windows an o/s) tries to map a file. contiguous free space means fewer disk IOs which (simplistically) translates to less overhead spent on finding stuff and more resources available to actually play the data stream. jitter can also happen if a driver is hosed (for whatever reason) and isn't buffering like it needs to ... small buffers exhibit a symptom similar to window turns - shake & bake coming off the media before it hits the player.
{end}


b (HP Storage Division)

[Lee DeRaud]

Vaughn- i'm not convinced this is a license problem ... it smells more like a driver buffering problem to me, but there wasn't enough info in Bill's post to be certain.Brad, you may be correct about Bill's original DVD problem, but if I read his post right, that's already been fixed. But the fix essentially reset his hard drive back to its factory-delivered state, so the license files for the DRM-protected music are gone because they didn't get backed up with the music files themselves.

[Brad Schafer]

whoops- on re-read, i see what you mean, lee. the current situ is "will not play" as opposed to "plays poorly".

assuming you're using Media Player, you need to do a Tools --> License Management operation to back up your licenses. otherwise (apart from hackery), you're outta luck.

helps to read closely, i guess.

b

[Tim Morton]

I crashed my computer a couple years ago and lost all my iTunes music...when I contacted apple to find a link to "redownload" my music they basically said to me...."If you bought a CD and lost it would you go back to Tower Records and expect them to hand you a replacement?

Kind of bummed me out....so I hope you have better luck.

[John Shuk]

I crashed my computer a couple years ago and lost all my iTunes music...when I contacted apple to find a link to "redownload" my music they basically said to me...."If you bought a CD and lost it would you go back to Tower Records and expect them to hand you a replacement?

Kind of bummed me out....so I hope you have better luck.
Answer: No I wouldn't. That is why I'm coming to you to shop.

[Bill Grumbine]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I am thinking they are probably gone, but I will try with the people who sold them to me. Most of them are on CDs already, but they live in the truck. Worst case scenario, I am probably out something like $20.00 all told, but it is frustrating none-the-less. I am going to write a nastygram to the morons at Toshiba telling them what I think of their computer fixing abilities.

Bill

[Martin Shupe]

I am going to write a nastygram to the morons at Toshiba telling them what I think of their computer fixing abilities.

Bill

Bill, sorry to hear about your computer problems, however, consider this:

In the late 80's, Toshiba sold the Soviets a computer controlled lathe/milling machine covertly, and over the (known by Toshiba) objections of the US. This allowed the USSR to improve the props on their nuclear ballistic submarines to make them significantly quieter and thus harder to track. When Congress found out, they just slapped them on the wrist. They should have been banned from ever doing business in the US again.

As a former sub tracker, my boycott of Toshiba products continues to this day.

Food for thought, when making your next electronic purchase.;)

[Chuck Wintle]

I am going to write a nastygram to the morons at Toshiba telling them what I think of their computer fixing abilities.

Bill
Bill,
The plastic trim around the display cracked after only 3 months use on my son's Toshiba laptop.
Toshiba refused to repair it under warranty stating it did not cover plastic pieces/trim parts.
I contacted Toshiba customer service indicating my dismay at their policies. It made no difference. In my opinion all of these computer companies are the same in that they want your money but don't/refuse to back up their products.

[Chuck Wintle]

In the late 80's, Toshiba sold the Soviets a computer controlled lathe/milling machine covertly, and over the (known by Toshiba) objections of the US. This allowed the USSR to improve the props on their nuclear ballistic submarines to make them significantly quieter and thus harder to track. When Congress found out, they just slapped them on the wrist. They should have been banned from ever doing business in the US again.

As a former sub tracker, my boycott of Toshiba products continues to this day.

Food for thought, when making your next electronic purchase.;)
Martin,
Technology transfers happen all the time with some instances receiving lots of publicity, like Toshiba for instance. In fact I believe it keeps the world safer because no one country can ever enjoy a decisive advantage over the other.