WD HD Music Skips

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Macbook Pro circa 2009
WD Passport external Hard Drive
+ iTunes
--------------------------------------------------------
= fail

Music skips ahead anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds into song

I bought a 500gb WD Passport HD a couple years ago in order to store my massive music library....first mistake? It crashed late last year and I sent it back losing only most of my music as a good deal was on my old iPod (and still is) and a few tidbits in my computer.

I got the replacement hard drive early this year and happily uploaded all of my music clearing my computer of a few gigs...loaded some songs onto a newer nano and every song in about 10% of the albums (could be more...haven't checked every song) automatically skips ahead at anywhere from 5 seconds to 30 seconds.

I've connected the drive to another mac (same problem) and I've tried firewire as well as usb (no luck). I've used Spotify as a media player and while it doesn't automatically skip ahead to the next song, it does cut out temporarily at the same trouble spot in each song.

Some of these songs are from god knows where, but others are no more than one transfer away from the original CD.

It seems to be a WD issue...(?)...but having a mac rather than a pc i figured troubleshooting and solutions might be different ie defragging, etc...

Has anyone come across this kind of issue?
 
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chas_m

Guest
Does this happen consistently across all types of songs or just occasionally? How is the drive connected (I'm guessing USB)? It sounds like the song files themselves are damaged, at least on those albums. Were they albums you recovered from elsewhere or are albums that you got from questionable sources?
 
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sooo... if I play Man Man's album Life Fantastic, all of the songs skip at about 5 seconds. The history for this particular album....I uploaded from the original CD directly onto my MBP last year, then when I got the warranty replaced WD Passport I moved the files from my MBP to my Passport, prior to which the album played normally. Off the top of my head, this also happens with Ratatat, which I took off of a friends' iPod. In both cases the songs consistently skip. There has been no variation in those songs which work and do not work. And like I said, i think it's probably about 10% of what is now about 11000 songs and specific to certain (or at least entire) albums..that is, as a rule of thumb, if one song in an album skips, they all do. Also, conversely, (can I say that?) if a song works, so will the rest.

Passport is currently connected via Firewire ...800, though I have two of each USB and firewire 800 and have tried all four cables.

I think you're right about frigged song files, but what would cause this?...and seemingly so randomly...or sporadically?

I thought this might have been more common than I'm gathering it actually is. :(
 
C

chas_m

Guest
Possibly a bad or corrupted transfer from the MBP to the Passport.

In the case of Man Man, you can re-rip the CD to fix that problem. With songs you got from other sources, you could buy them from iTunes, give them up or use iTunes Match to "legitimize" the songs and replace them with iTunes copies. If there's a lot of them that exhibit this problem the $25 for iTunes Match starts to look like a really good deal.
 

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