NTFS (flac) problem

[jonnie5]

Hi folks, for the last 6 months I have ripped all my cd's, one lot in mp3 format and a separate one in flac. I have used a Sony 1.0TB external high speed usb hard drive. Ive ripped about 500 cd's so far. Everything has been ok up until I purchased a new Pioneer AV amp. Until now Ive used my Samsung smart tv to read the flac files on the hard drive, sent to my old Denon av amp via optical. However the Pioneer doesn't read the hard drive as its formatted in NFTS. I'd really like to be able to plug the hard drive into the amp rather than the tv. Is there a way to change the format on the hard drive without loosing all my flac files? Whats the best way to tackle this problem? Fat32?

Im reasonably technical but a step to step guide wouldn't go a miss.

[garym]

Re: NTFS (flac) problem

Hi folks, for the last 6 months I have ripped all my cd's, one lot in mp3 format and a separate one in flac. I have used a Sony 1.0TB external high speed usb hard drive. Ive ripped about 500 cd's so far. Everything has been ok up until I purchased a new Pioneer AV amp. Until now Ive used my Samsung smart tv to read the flac files on the hard drive, sent to my old Denon av amp via optical. However the Pioneer doesn't read the hard drive as its formatted in NFTS. I'd really like to be able to plug the hard drive into the amp rather than the tv. Is there a way to change the format on the hard drive without loosing all my flac files? Whats the best way to tackle this problem? Fat32?



Im reasonably technical but a step to step guide wouldn't go a miss.

you need a backup of your files anyhow. Just buy a new drive, format it as FAT32, then copy the files from the old drive to new drive. And now you have a backup drive too!

[jonnie5]

Re: NTFS (flac) problem

Thanks garym. Kind of thought that. Will moving the files about lessen the quality? Is there anyway that I could covert the flac to wav? What would this do? Cheers

[garym]

Re: NTFS (flac) problem

Thanks garym. Kind of thought that. Will moving the files about lessen the quality? Is there anyway that I could covert the flac to wav? What would this do? Cheers

no. Copying files does not change quality. These are digital. If moving digital files changed quality the Internet would not work. Neither would your computer. A copy is exact. (You may be thinking about analog. Every copy of a cassette tape loses quality)


Dbpoweramp converter will convert from FLAC to wav. But why do you want to do this?

[jonnie5]

Re: NTFS (flac) problem

Just to see which plays better. Not sure if I'd notice though.

[dylanremaster]

Re: NTFS (flac) problem

Rember, the files names must be shorter in FAT32

[Porcus]

Re: NTFS (flac) problem

Thanks garym. Kind of thought that. Will moving the files about lessen the quality? Is there anyway that I could covert the flac to wav? What would this do? Cheers

Garym is right.
- You do not want to convert to WAV (this assuming that the Pioneer can read FLAC).
- Copying a file does not change it any more than sending a PDF document as e-mail attachment.
- You can however check that the copying worked as it should (i.e. no read/write errors). I'll get back to that.
- Issue: FAT32 has more characters illegal than NTFS has. And length may or may not be an issue - you have to experiment.

So:
(1) get yourself another drive.
(2) FAT32 can, they say, be used on even 4 TB drives, but you won't get Windows formatting it. Found this tool recommended on TechRepublic: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/ind...at32format.htm .
(3) Copy. Get Microsoft Richcopy to do a copying with verification.


Since FLAC is a checksummed format, you can actually do copy without verify, and then check later that the files are intact. I use the foobar2000 media player with the foo_verifier component, but a simple light application is audiotester.exe: http://www.vuplayer.com/other.php :
(I) drag+drop your NTFS drive. Wait for a day or so for it to finish. Make note of how many files it did process. (All should verify OK.)
(II) repeat with the FAT drive. If it did process equally many files, with no errors, then everything should be fine.