The Drive Disappeared Halfway Through a Press

The album is on an external drive. A press starts, the drive disappears, and the progress message stops making sense. Perhaps a cable came loose. Perhaps the volume became unavailable for another reason. Your immediate concern is the same: which file is there now, and what should you do before trying again?

The answer depends on how far the operation got and which copies remain accessible. A reassuring message cannot settle those questions while the source is missing. Private Press's recovery workflow is designed to keep that uncertainty visible and prevent another write from trampling an unresolved replacement.

A press has several points where it can stop

Changing artwork or metadata requires writing new file contents. In a replacement workflow, the application prepares a staged file, checks it, and moves it into the original file's place. That creates several distinguishable situations. The original may still be in place. A staged copy may exist without becoming the active file. A rollback copy may hold the original after a rename. The replacement may have landed before the app recorded its completion.

These are possibilities, not a description of every interruption. Treating them all as a single failed press would discard information that recovery needs.

Before a press starts, Private Press records that the album operation is underway and reserves the album for it. If it cannot do that, it stops before changing files. A separate file record tracks paths, replacement stages, and evidence about the original, staged, and rollback copies.

The distinction is useful even if you never look at a journal. The app needs to know both that an album operation was underway and what happened to a particular file. When it returns after an interruption, it can examine the surviving evidence rather than assuming that an unfinished progress indicator means the original was untouched.

Unreachable and unresolved need different treatment

Consider a hypothetical album stored on a USB drive. The volume becomes unavailable during replacement of track five. After restarting the app, Private Press can read a recovery record, but it cannot examine the files named in it. The correct result is to wait for access to that source.

Recovery Review calls this condition “Waiting for a volume.” A deferred replacement blocks another press of its affected path while access is unavailable. That condition alone does not block the rest of the collection. It also does not prove that the original, staged, or rollback copy is complete. Their state cannot be confirmed until they can be examined.

A different situation arises when the files are accessible but the evidence does not establish a safe automatic recovery. That replacement needs human attention. Recovery Review shows the affected file and, when available, the staged copy, rollback copy, and record locations. Reveal in Finder lets you inspect those locations.

An unreadable journal is different again. If the record's target cannot be known, the app cannot safely narrow the block to one file or offer ordinary manual discard. The panel explains that pressing is paused and that the record cannot safely be discarded while its target is unknown.

These distinctions keep a missing source from being mistaken for a confirmed damaged file, or a damaged record from being dismissed as a temporary connection issue.

Reconnect before resolving the record

If the source is unavailable, first restore access to the original volume and let recovery examine it. Confirm that Finder can reach the files, then refresh Recovery Review. A source may be physically connected while still unavailable to the application, so connection alone is not proof that recovery can proceed.

Keep the staged and rollback files until you understand the result. Renaming or deleting them as a cleanup exercise can remove the evidence the recovery process expects. If automatic recovery still cannot resolve the replacement, inspect the named files and preserve copies before making a manual decision.

When Recovery Review offers “Discard this record,” choosing it stops tracking the interrupted replacement and lets pressing continue, but leaves staged and rollback copies in place. It does not choose the right audio file or restore the original. If the source is still unavailable or the record cannot be read, restore access and follow the panel’s instructions.

Clearing a displayed report is also different from repairing a file. If you have an old report with no recovery record, inspect the file before clearing it. A cleaner panel is useful after the underlying question is settled.

Recovery copies have a limited job

A staged file or rollback copy can help resolve one interrupted operation. They do not establish that every track has an independent backup. Backup creation in the file writer depends on whether a backup destination was supplied, and recovery cannot promise that a missing drive still holds every expected copy.

Maintain a separate backup of the collection you want to preserve. Apple documents Time Machine as a way to back up music and other files and restore them later. Check your own backup settings and that the files on your collection drive are included, rather than assuming the existence of a backup disk covers them. Apple's Time Machine guide explains setup and checking backup progress.

An interrupted batch also deserves a look beyond the last track on screen. Earlier files may already have changed, while later files may never have reached their writer. Review the recorded results before rerunning the entire album.

Private Press keeps records that let you review an interrupted edit without guessing from a progress message. Reconnect the drive, open Recovery Review, and inspect the files it lists before pressing again. Keep the staged and rollback copies until the record is resolved, and maintain a separate backup of the collection.