scissorman
Registered
I sent a failed ext. FW drive (clicking sound, wouldnt mount) to a fairly-well-known data recovery specialist that advertised PC and Mac formats. The drive contained numerous Mac-only files, including Sound Designer II audio files (.sd2), Final Cut Pro (.fcp), and Digital Performer files (native, no suffix), to name a few.
After said specialist started working on the drive, it became frighteningly apparent that they were not up to speed on Mac systems. To make a long story short, after a couple of weeks I received a hard drive formatted FAT32, and every Mac-only file showed up in Finder as a Unix Executable file.
My first thought was they were using Windows-based software and had corrupted all my Mac-only files beyond repair. Forging ahead and knowing nothing about scripts, I used a 3rd party program called Super Get Info and was able to change the Type and Author of the Digital Performer files, and got them to open. So far, so good. But changing the Type and Author of the .sd2 files didnt yield the same results; Finder sees the type, size, etc. but no audio program (DP, Peak, Jam) will open them.
Thinking I was screwed, I opened another project in DP that contained audio files which were still recognized in Finder as Unix Executables, and they played! I have no idea why this works---no other program will open them independently---but it shows if I can get an app to recognize them, they are still valid files.
Is there a way to dig deeper, besides just changing the Type and Author, to essentially get back all the header(?) information that was originally there in the .sd2 files (before the "data recovery") so an audio program can see that these are indeed valid files and its legit to operate on them? Something in Developer Tools, 3rd party, etc.?
After said specialist started working on the drive, it became frighteningly apparent that they were not up to speed on Mac systems. To make a long story short, after a couple of weeks I received a hard drive formatted FAT32, and every Mac-only file showed up in Finder as a Unix Executable file.
My first thought was they were using Windows-based software and had corrupted all my Mac-only files beyond repair. Forging ahead and knowing nothing about scripts, I used a 3rd party program called Super Get Info and was able to change the Type and Author of the Digital Performer files, and got them to open. So far, so good. But changing the Type and Author of the .sd2 files didnt yield the same results; Finder sees the type, size, etc. but no audio program (DP, Peak, Jam) will open them.
Thinking I was screwed, I opened another project in DP that contained audio files which were still recognized in Finder as Unix Executables, and they played! I have no idea why this works---no other program will open them independently---but it shows if I can get an app to recognize them, they are still valid files.
Is there a way to dig deeper, besides just changing the Type and Author, to essentially get back all the header(?) information that was originally there in the .sd2 files (before the "data recovery") so an audio program can see that these are indeed valid files and its legit to operate on them? Something in Developer Tools, 3rd party, etc.?