HD3 Disaster Recovery

[maggior]

I am running Windows XP with SS3.4 US version. I have a refurb HD3

I've been using this device for months with no issues. Last night, while I was transferring music to the unit through SS, my PC had a hard crash (blue screen). I rebooted the machine and brought up sonic stage. I deleted the albums that I was transferring during that session since I didn't know just where it crashed. As it went though this process, it generated an error that it couldn't reconcile a bunch of file names called "unknown". Hit OK and it would start the process all over again.

Thinking that this had to do with the newly imported file in SS, I removed those from SS. Still same problem. I then took the drastic measure of initializing my HD3. Even with all of the music removed from there, I had the same problem.

Then I took the really drastic measure of uninstalling SS and reinstalling it. After uninstalling, I removed the entire Sony and Sony coporation directories and registry key hives. I still have the same problem!!

The message box that comes up when I connect the unit to SS is "Checking if any tracks were deleted without being transferred back to My Library. The deleted rights information of these tracks will be recovered (The remaining transfer count will increase).

After an attempt to do this by clicking OK, the message box comes up again. If I press OK, I then see a message box that says "An error occured while transferring. The rights information (MAC) of the track is invalid. Below that are a bunch of line that say "Untitled".

I've even tried deleted the contents of OMGAUDIO on the unit through Windows Explorer.

I am stuck and am now at a loss of what to try next.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Rich

[maggior]

Well, I figured out how to get a true clean install of sonic stage on my machine.

Based on the behavior I was seeing, I really thought the issue was with the HD3. But, I formatted it via the menu and connected it to another PC which I have SS running on. It encountered no problems.

Soooo, I went back to the problem machine and found that the OMG stuff is installed as a separate package. So, I uninstalled them through control panel and reinstalled. Still no luck.

Now I'm desparate - I search my entire C drive for *sony*. I find a directory called "Sony Shared". This has dat files and many things related to OMG - keys and so forth. I delete this. And then I install again.

FINALLY, I can transfer music to my HD3 again.

If this happens again, I'll have to see if there is a way to recover without having to uninstall and reimport all of my music!

Ugh, sony!!! I came so close to pitching my HD3 out the window and go out to buy an IPod!!

Hopefully some other poor soul will find this information useful in the future.

Rich