Once again: Mac OS Error -39 Unexpected End Of File

[cbergm7210]

Have read all the posts related to this. Nothing I have tried stated in the posts has worked to recover this file.

I was working on a project, the computer crashed, and when I rebooted now the file won't open. I get this message. Two day's work down the crapper. (I have back ups, but they did not run last night for other reasons, and I still would have lost today's work.)

SMART check on drive is fine. Permissions repaired, etc.

The thing that tells me I am not going to get this one back is that the Digital Performer file went from five megs (restoring it before the crash) to 37 kB. Whatever caused the "End of the file" error has truncated the DP file.

I do not understand this error and would appreciate anyone's further two cents. Obviously it is very disconcerting that one can lose a day's work in the blink of an eye. I have sat here for eight hours a day for the last eight years working on DP, and this has happened twice in the last two weeks. Failing computer?

Audio drive is separate from boot.

Thanks for the Motunation brotherhood support, as usual.

Berg Mann

[mikehalloran]

Audio drive is separate from boot.

is the common denominator.

This is a generic Mac OS error and can mean anything from "you don't have permissions to save your work" to "there's a disk error that keeps you from saving your work" or "there's a disk error that keeps you from seeing your work" etc.

SMART check on drive is fine.

which doesn't mean a thing. If you've not seen my posts showing some pretty horrible drives that pass SMART, here's one of many (this drive had real problems, btw):


TechTool Pro is the only utility I know of that shows the real health of your drives. MicroMat is offering TTP 7 for $39.99 with a no charge upgrade to TTP 8 when it ships later.
http://www.micromat.com/index.php?optio ... cle&id=453

Permissions repaired, etc.

not usually an issue. Privileges are. Have you granted youself full Read & Write privileges on that drive and checked the box "Apply to enclosed items"? If not, do so.

So what to do?

Since caused by a crash, privileges are unlikely to be the culprit (I posted that last part because you aren't the only person ever affected by this).

Let's look at the hard drive. Run Apple Disk Utility, Repair Disk on the entire drive, not the volume. If anything comes up red, do it again. Keep doing it until a) everything shows ok or b) you get the exact same errors three times in a row. If anything changes, run it again (I have run it up to 50 times to recover data).

Once it shows OK - Passed, see if you can recover your file.

If this doesn't work, recover all your data and replace the drive. If this does work, recover all your data and replace the drive.

It may be possible that certain recovery utilities can help. Do not buy Disk Warrior as that's just a waste of money anymore.

[guitardood]

Sorry if I'm asking the obvious, but did you check the Autosaves folder? I've been saved a few times by this, at least only losing a small portion of work.