Hi,
Thank you for update, it is a relief that I was right, because "Tok, tok, tok" means Drive itself issue and "Tsk, tsk, tsk." also pints to failure of enclosure electronic board where hdd is fully working in 90% of cases unles sthere is "Tok, tok, tok".

1:0 for Home team :)

Re recognition: HDD partition Serial ID doesn't change if you change enclosure or connect it directly to PC. It only changes on HDD format.

The original HDD was a Seagate external connected to my laptop via USB 3.0. The new enclosure kit also uses a USB 3.0 interface. I went ahead and connected it to the laptop and MediaMonkey immediately showed all my music including the star ratings. Whew! What a relief! :D

Again, thanks for the suggestions. It was the suggestion that, perhaps, the drive itself is not dead and that it may be an interface problem is what compelled me to try fitting the drive in a new enclosure.

DriveID may have been changed by Windows is the drive is connecting via USB now. However this can easily remedy that: https://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=63823&hilit=update+location+of+files+in+database

After all the great advice I have received, I am pleased to report that the original drive (Drive A) is still functional. I purchased a HDD enclosure and transferred the drive to the new enclosure. Finding that it works within the new enclosure, I now have backed up all the files in their original directory and folder structure just in case the survival of Drive A is only temporary.

I assume that I can plug Drive A (within the new enclosure) into my PC where MediaMonkey resides without having to point the MediaMonkey database to a different drive ID. The fact that the drive's enclosure is different would not change the ID of the drive, right?

Anything else I should be careful about?

Thanks for your continued assistance.

[quote=allbenatt post_id=472218 time=1598897865 user_id=75038]
Peke, are you now stating that there is no way for MediaMonkey to associate the star ratings with the music files based on what I described above?
[/quote]I am Stating quite opposite, If you Copied files from X -> Y with exact same filenames and you have not changed them in anyway afterwards once you copy them to Z drive and select grayed tracks from X drive then do Locate moved missing it should pair them with files on Z drive.

It will not work if you changed filenames or edited tags or in any way changed the files so that MM can't see them as same files only on different drive (eg Z).

Also it will not work if you scanned Z drive into MM, in which case you need to delete Z drive files from MM library (not physically from drive Z) and do Locate Moved/missing on grayed files from X drive and you should get them back.

[quote=allbenatt post_id=472218 time=1598897865 user_id=75038]
Sorry, Peke. I did not fully understand your question.
[/quote]My question was related to fact that you need Backup of original files on second drive (If I got you correctly it is your Y drive). So you have backup that you copied back onto new drive eg. Y -> Z.

[quote="Erwin Hanzl" post_id=472198 time=1598856465 user_id=90757]
That's what it's all about. Unreadable Hard Drive:
The music files are on the dead drive "X"
You may be able to copy these music files to drive "Z".

"Steps For Recovering Data From Unreadable Hard Drive"
Connect the external hard drive to your system and download Remo Recover install it and follow the steps explained below to perform unreadable hard drive recovery.
[/quote] That is not possible if your PC do not recognize drive connected at all eg. that "Tsk, tsk, tsk." sound which means in 99.99% that hardware didn't initialize HDD (spinup and done plater+HDD head test) to make it in working state. To be clear Every HDD have these steps to perform before it is usable when it gets power: Part Heads to zero position -> Spin Up plates -> Move head form 0 to last sector on drive in order to align them -> Read Parameters of plates and report to Controller chip -> HDD Controller chip inits electronics and read Firmware info and HDD parameter -> Send that to USB controller -> Data on HDD info is parsed to PC. For allbenatt I guess HDD is in loop on first three steps and no hdd is reported to system. That is why I suggested to pull it out of enclosure and try to connect it directly to PC which will eliminate Enclosure USB controller failure and hive clear note if HDD need Plater/heads replacement to get to data (unless plates are physically damaged), but as allbenatt have backup it is not valid option because it is expensive (500+USD depending on drive size) + price for a new HDD where to save recovered data.

[quote]Finally if your HDD died when your will get backups of tracks for new HDD? As if you ar egetting new files then Locate Moved/missing will not work[/quote]

Sorry, Peke. I did not fully understand your question.

But let me clarify something regarding the backups of my music files. For 90% of them, I did the following, in this order:
[list=]Put them in folders by Artist Name-Album Name
Tagged them and added cover art where possible using MP3 Tag
Normalized volume level using MP3 Gain
Transferred them to External Drive X (the one that no longer works) - this was my music server
Also backed them up to External Drive Y (which still functions)[/list]

Now that External Drive X is dead, I want to:
[list=]Transfer all the folders containing the tagged and normalized files from the External Drive Y backup to a NEW External Drive Z.
Connect External Drive Z to the laptop that has MM and the MM.DB on it
Have the ratings that are in MM.DB apply to the music files that are on the new External Drive Z[/list]

Note that, when I proceed to transfer the backup files to the new External Drive Z, the folders will still be organized by Artist Name-Album Name as they had been previously but I can't remember the exact name of the 5 top-level directories the Artist Name-Album Name folders were placed in on the dead External Drive X.

Peke, are you now stating that there is no way for MediaMonkey to associate the star ratings with the music files based on what I described above?

[quote]"He doesn't have software issues but hardware issue."[/quote]

That's what it's all about. [b]Unreadable Hard Drive:[/b]
The music files are on the dead drive "X"
You may be able to copy these music files to drive "Z".

"Steps For Recovering Data From Unreadable Hard Drive"
Connect the external hard drive to your system and download Remo Recover install it and follow the steps explained below to perform unreadable hard drive recovery.

Hi,
He doesn't have software issues but hardware issue.

Last chance: [url]https://www.remosoftware.com/unreadable-external-hard-drive-recovery[/url]

Hi,
If it is not "Tok, tok, tok" that "Tsk, tsk, tsk." sound either means that hdd heads dropped (usually followed by "Tok, tok, tok"), cable is too long (I know stupid but have seen it too many times, so I bought 10-15cm cable in it worked several times), Controller died (if you can carefully open, even to break case to get to HDD. you should at least 50/50 chance to get your data back by connecting it to PC directly).

Finally if your HDD died when your will get backups of tracks for new HDD? As if you ar egetting new files then Locate Moved/missing will not work :(

[quote=Peke post_id=472169 time=1598752221 user_id=213]
Hi,
Use any third party apps to move/clone drive to new HDD (MM closed) -> UNPLUG OLD DRIVE -> Plug New -> Start MM -> Disable new HDD in portable devices -> in Options enable "Entire Library" collection -> Using location tree node locate old drive (it should not have Drive letter) -> Select all tracks -> File -> Locate moved -> Select new drive -> Be patient -> Check which are not found if any press Ok. That would preserve all the statistic/rating/playlist in MM library assigned with old hdd.
[/quote]

Trouble is that I can't move nor clone the old drive to the new HDD as the old one is dead, expired, kaput...now a paperweight. I plug it in and it is not recognized by either of my laptops. It just sits there, blinks at me, and clicks softly as if to say [i]"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You didn't shut me down correctly too many times."[/i]

Hi,
Use any third party apps to move/clone drive to new HDD (MM closed) -> UNPLUG OLD DRIVE -> Plug New -> Start MM -> Disable new HDD in portable devices -> in Options enable "Entire Library" collection -> Using location tree node locate old drive (it should not have Drive letter) -> Select all tracks -> File -> Locate moved -> Select new drive -> Be patient -> Check which are not found if any press Ok. That would preserve all the statistic/rating/playlist in MM library assigned with old hdd.

Thanks, Lowlander. That's a lot of verifying. :/

Thanks for the tip, Peke. I would not have thought of the question of sync drive vs regular library drive.

New drive should arrive in 7-10 days. This time I'm using a SSD. Crossing my fingers most if not all files will adopt the ratings in the database. I put a lot of work into that.

Yes, you can use Locate Moved/Missing Files, but verify the matches it makes.

Hi,
Yes, they should be found using those steps.

NOTE that if it is external drive it is possible that it can be listed and enabled in Portable devices (Tools -> Options -> Portable devices) and if yes disable it so that MM is using it as a regular library HDD not as Sync device.