How should one feel after losing large chunks of their MP3 collection?

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I bought an external hard drive for my mp3s and about half of them got deleted on the way over - which defeated the purpose of the purchase. I'm still working though all the stages of loss - luckily some of songs still live on in my ipod.

Maybe it should be freeing or something. I dunno. I don't really have any random grime tracks I learned about from here or all of those Scritti Politti songs (probably the hardest loss to take), etc, anymore nor do I have the connection or time to download them now. After it happened I played "Ceremony" and had a moment of silence. But...it'll be ok, I think, right?

Discuss losing MP3s. Is it different than having CDs stolen? I have always acted like they were pretty disposable. Deleting them on a whim, ignoring whole albums I downloaded for weeks, but the MP3s I liked were as treasured as any music I bought and held in my hands (usually because I couldn't buy it).

― artdamages (artdamages), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Uh oh. I just bought an external hard drive, too. I haven't exported anything yet, but now I'm scared!

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

i have no idea what i did wrong! except that i should have checked to make sure I had EVERYTHING on the external hard drive before I deleted the old copies. which should be obvious, you'd think.

― artdamages (artdamages), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

i was thinking of buying a 250gb external drive. i'm starting to come round to the whole stream-anything-on-demand argument now...

― Freelance Hiveminder (blueski), Monday, 18 October 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Uhm...i filled my 80g external and recently bought/transfered over to a 250g firewire HD. It's a simple process with little risk. Copy files, point iTunes music folder to the right location and let the program process the new location of files. There's no scare in transferring files from one hard drive to the next unless you don't copy them all and delete the old sources without checking.

Mp3's are just as valuable as any other piece of music. The packaging is worthless of course but the sound in your ears is the same (not talking about frequency range here so chill). We are locally organizing "Hard Drive Party's" where you meet up with friends who have external hard drives and swap Major Gigabites of music from various peeps with ease. It's the best way to get 7gigs of Beatles crap you never knew you wanted. Or all those Talk Talk albums you've always wanted. Or the endless soundboard recordings of Villalobos and Richie Hawtin.

You'll get everything you had before the deletion plus some you didn't have.

― biznotic, Monday, 18 October 2004 16:07 (twenty-one years ago)

no one i know has any music i want.

but you are right there shouldn't be any danger in transferring files.

― artdamages (artdamages), Monday, 18 October 2004 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I lost a large chunk, something like twenty gigs or so recently.
I feel your pain.
May I recommend in the future that you find a likeminded listener and burn your collection to theirs for their enjoyment... and also as a backup?

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Upset. Cheated by an indifferent deity.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 18 October 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't want to wind you up - and now it's too late anyway - but it's always a good idea to create some back-up CDs (it doesn't take as much space as one thinks). Losing Scritti tracks is murder. If I can be of any help...

― Ludesse (ludesse), Monday, 18 October 2004 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

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