Steve Phillips

I transcribed the recorded conversations over the weekend (there were some very incriminating conversations so I'm very glad I was able to restore the disc) and I have sent that to the police. They are now assessing the case (could take 6 months) to decide whether to investigate (an investigation could take 12 months) and then if that all happens they may or may not get charged. I am considering engaging a debt collector, but this is all very academic if they have, as I suspect, gambled all the money. You can't get blood from a stone and the police cannot help with monetary restitution, they are only there to send people to jail if they break the law... The police are convinced they are up to no good and I have provided them with some very good leads. I can't see that the cops will want these people on the streets gaining people's confidence and ripping them off then hiding from them. But I guess it depends on whether they uncover evidence that will stand up in court and this depends on what they've actually done with the money. Will keep you posted...

I went down to JB Hi Fi in Brighton and told them my sob story and they gave me a few minutes alone with a MDS-JE470... which worked a treat! It took me three attempts - fooling it into thinking it was the same disc was easy, then I had to dirty the TOC (made a quick name change to the disc) before it would save it back to the new disc... and... hey presto... deleted recordings were now available. Phew! Thanks to everyone for all your suggestions!!!

Mystyler - OK, ta, I'd be interested to know how you go... Me - All my other discs are now backed up. Unfortunately this one was being used for recording telephone conversations so the read only switch was not enabled. All - wouldn't a simple 'unerase' facility be useful on all minidisc recorders? Maybe a feature request...

You know - I would not have thought of that in a million years. I'll see how I go. That will work but I feel so bad about returning things. But it is a very good, off the wall idea. I need to change the way I think!

Someone told me various stories and said they needed help and they urgently needed to borrow money off me. The two stories revolved around an inheritance in Israel (which I don't believe now) and a series of life saving operations for a relative in Romania (which I don't believe now either). My very strong suspicion is that they gambled all the money away at Crown casino. The fact that they are now hiding from me and they haven't paid me back tells me there is something wrong... as you could imagine... But, little do they know, their stories are ALL ON MINIDISC AND THEY WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH IT! Ta for the tip by the way...

Thanks people. By the way, I was in Perth over Xmas. I went to a Sony store and asked a few questions there. They had only one deck from what I recall and that wasn't one of the required models. I'm sure I'll track one down eventually. Thanks for your help anyway.

Hi all, I am in the unfortunate position of finding that I have been defrauded (of a lot of money :cry: ) by some so-called friends of mine who are now on the run from me. I used my trusty MZ-R90 to secretly record conversations with them as an insurance policy in case they ever decided to change their story (don't worry - all those myths about this sort of activity are untrue - under Australian law you can secretly record ANY conversation, as long as you are a party to that conversation... and it is also totally admissable as evidence in court (phew - I only just found that out from the cops)). In any case, I have also been recording telephone conversations since they have started hiding from me. I get a lot of phone hang-ups when they hear my voice so on my recent disc I went to delete a couple of tracks... and... whoops... deleted the whole damn disc. After a frantic email discussion with Eric (thanks mate!) he pointed me in the direction of this document for restoring an erased minidisc table of contents: http://www.minidisc.org/cloning_procedure.html Therefore, I need to find one of the following Sony decks here in Melbourne in order to restore this disc and use the contents as evidence: MDS-JE440, MDS-JE520, MDS-JE640, MDS-JB920, MDS-JB930 or MDS-JB940. (Stop press: or the Sharp portables MD-MS701/2) I would be very, very appreciative if any good samaritan in Melbourne has one of the above decks that I can come around and use for approximately 30 minutes or so in order to restore the deleted TOC to this blank minidisc. Thanks in advance! Steve Tel (M): 0417-031-677 Tel (H): 03-9537-1349