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Parts of mp3 files overwritten with other mp3 files, software or hardware fault?

Super User Asked by erik on January 10, 2021

I’m running pop_OS, and I have a folder on an old laptop hard drive in which I store my music. They weren’t organized, it was a mess, so a couple days ago I organized them in the following format, by creating new folders in the same folder and dragging and dropping the music files (using the default file manager):

artist folder
 ┗ album folder
   ┗ song file 1
     song file 2
     ...

However, there is a problem. The last parts of most songs are overwritten with a completely different song. For example, say song x1 from artist y1 has a duration of 3:50, but when listening to the file, at around 3:00, song x2 from artist y2 starts playing (in the same MP3 file).

What could the problem be? Is there an easy fix or are my files screwed? I have very important files on that hard drive (the music I can download again though so it’s not a big problem), is the hard drive dying? SMART says "Disk is OK" and all the attributes are not even close to the threshold. The partition is NTFS

fsck exits with code 0, ntfsfix output is

Mounting volume... OK
Processing of $MFT and $MFTMirr completed successfully.
Checking the alternate boot sector... OK
NTFS volume version is 3.1.
NTFS partition /dev/sdb2 was processed successfully.

SMART attributes:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       2940
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0027   252   252   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0023   094   090   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       1997
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   086   086   000    Old_age   Always       -       14915
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   252   252   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002f   252   252   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0025   252   252   015    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       9321
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0033   252   252   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       815
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       4910
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       5116091
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0032   252   252   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0033   252   252   048    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
186 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2808
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0002   079   052   040    Old_age   Always       -       21 (Min/Max 13/50)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1079
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       9
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   068   068   000    Old_age   Always       -       331255
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   064   052   000    Old_age   Always       -       21 (Min/Max 13/50)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   252   252   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   252   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   252   252   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0036   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x002a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       30369

One Answer

The disk is old and not recommended for irreplaceable data, although its SMART attributes still seem healthy. At 10 years old, it has already lasted more than most such disks. I wouldn't recommend keeping on it irreplaceable data, at least not without another backup device.

As all tests of the file-system tests have succeeded, there is no reason to assume a hardware error. Certainly an error that systematically overwrites the last parts of most songs seems much too far-fetched.

The only reasonable explanation of such problem is software. I can't say which, since I don't know your installed applications and the history of this disk.

I would suggest to download again the music, which you say is not a big problem. I would also suggest to get a backup disk, and to keep a list of hash-values of the files on your disk, which you can check before syncing with the backup. This way, although much slower, you will detect corruption before it's written to the backup device, and could perhaps guess at its cause.

Correct answer by harrymc on January 10, 2021

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