Recover corrupted audio file?

September 23, 2009 11:42 AM

Can I recover this corrupted audio file (wma)?

I recorded it on my handheld digital recorder (Olympus WS-100). It recorded fine, but then it disappeared on the handset. Then when I plugged it into USB and downloaded it, it wouldn't open.

I understand that this happens sometimes with this recorder. Is there any hope in recovering it? I put the file online here (13 mb): http://drop.io/2r64v6o#

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

posted by roaring beast to Technology (6 answers total)

I toyed around with your file for a little while and got nowhere.

You might try running PhotoRec on the recorder's memory.
posted by gregr at 1:04 PM on September 23, 2009

I tried a couple of other tricks with no success.
posted by gregr at 2:30 PM on September 23, 2009

Best answer: The first 16 KB of your file is trashed. For the WMA format, that's a very important 16 KB, since that contains the header that indicates how the file is encoded. Fortunately, all Olympus WS-100s use the same WMA format, so I grabbed the first 16 KB of this Smashing Pumpkins concert and spliced it into your recording. The repaired file is at http://drop.io/iga57gb.
posted by pocams at 7:31 PM on September 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

pocams, you are amazing. i heart the hive mind and the hive hands.
posted by Sully at 10:21 PM on September 23, 2009

pocams, thanks for the great trick.
posted by gregr at 6:41 AM on September 24, 2009

Response by poster: The repaired file from pocams was not altogether there, but after working on it some more, he got it fully restored.

Thanks to everyone for their help. I am truly grateful that you took time out of your day to help or at least give it a shot. Thank you!
posted by roaring beast at 12:16 PM on September 29, 2009