majority of recording missing for 7 recordings only

[dstrybsisys]

Hey guys,
I am recording simple narration for my work and it is alot of sound files. Everything is working great except for 7 recordings. For these 7 the entire recording is missing except for about 3-4 seconds in the middle. It is only for these 7 recordings and it is in almost the exact same location (about 20-30 seconds in) in each recording and the recording has saved or remebered only about 3-4 seconds of the recording for the exact same amount of time. Was there a setting that was changed? If so is there a way to change it back to recover what I had recorded? Ideally i would like to recover the recordings but if i have to i can re-record the files.

EDIT: Is it possible that it was the narrator made a mistake?? i wasnt personally doing these recordings it was someone else.

[steve]

The number of recordings that I've lost through "user error" I'd be embarrassed to admit.
Audacity Projects are complex things - there can be thousands of little files in the _data folder, tied together by a single XML (.AUP) file. When recording, it is highly recommended to export a back-up WAV file at the earliest opportunity. WAV files are remarkably robust and you can easily burn additional copies to CD if it's a particularly important recording.

This article gives a pretty good overview of the technology involved: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Projects

[dstrybsisys]

haha i was afraid of that. Thanks steve! im just glad that it was only 7 recordings and not the entire thing.

[Gale Andrews]

i wasnt personally doing these recordings it was someone else.

Then are you opening Audacity projects (.aup) this other person created, or importing WAV or AIFF files created by the other person? If the latter, click File > Check Dependencies... which should let you see if you can copy in any WAV/AIFF files that the project depends on. If that is the problem, copying the files in will restore the missing audio.

If you are not already using the current 1.3.13 Beta (see Help > About Audacity for your version), please upgrade:
http://audacityteam.org/download/beta_windows#recdown



Gale