HELP! HELP!!! Losing data when converting to .wav!

[Robin G]

I am using Audacity 1.3.10 with Windows Vista to create an audiobook. Very simple and straightforward, no sound effects or anything, just my voice reading the book. I've done 10 chapters with no problems, recorded, did noise removal on each one (some mic noise), then converted to .wav. All good. Then I did chapter 11, just like the others. I happened to go back and check it after recording chapter 12, and found that somehow most of the audio had been lost upon conversion to .wav! When I opened it in Audacity, it showed the whole 15 minute session in the window, and the line was flat... no audio... through most of it, with just a few 30 second or less chunks of sound here and there! No rhyme or reason, random chunks of sound, cutting off in the middle of sentences... I had to delete it and re-record the whole thing, since I hadn't saved it as an audacity file, just the .wav. Then Audacity completely froze up and wouldn't even open again after I shut the program down and restarted my computer. I had to uninstall the program and re-install it. I continued recording with the new install, did chapters 13, 14, and 15, did noise removal and converted to .wav, double checked and they converted just fine. Then I opened chapter 13 again to edit it, get rid of some tongue slips and errors in reading here and there, listened to the whole thing, got rid of the errors, then went to export it as a .wav again. (this is what I've been doing all along with the other files too!) and the same thing happened! When I opened the new .wav file to double check (I learned from my mistake last time!) it was mostly blank again, with just a few scattered chunks of sound! I deleted it and tried again... twice... and the same thing happened both times! GRRRRR!!!! I am making this audiobook as a Christmas present and I need to finish it today but the program isn't cooperating and I'm so frustrated I'm about to cry! I would switch to the old, stable version of Audacity (I also have that one downloaded) but it doesn't have that noise removal feature, which I need! Can anyone help me? Please?
~Robin

[steve]

I'd suggest checking your hard drive.
1st, check that you have plenty of free space.
2nd check that the drive isn't fragmented.
3rd Check the disk for errors.

Depending on the size of the drive, this may take quite a long time, but you can leave it running while you are doing something else.

[waxcylinder]

Have you recorded each chapter as a separate WAV file?
Have you tried to create a consildated WAV fromthe se separate WAVs?
Have you in doing so moved/deleted/renamed any of the earlier WAVs?
If so do you still have those WAVs backed up somewhere?

Please explain your workflow a little more clearly and we'll see if we can help at all.

WC