You need to get the Fire Wire adapter from Alesis. You will need to then remove the hard disk drive from the recorder and connect it to this converter device to feed into your PC or Macintosh. This way it will convert their proprietary file allocation to something your computer can accept. You will need a fire wire input on your computer to accomplish this and a piece of software such as Adobe Audition that can take a 24-bit file and then you can down convert to 16-bit 44.1kHz to fit onto a CD.

I think the adapter runs under $200 US and an inexpensive FireWire cards will run you as little as $40 US. Still an investment either way you look at it.

Ms. Remy Ann David

tohpati71,

If you have removed the drive from your HD24 and put the drive in a PC where is was formatted, I don't think there is much chance that the original data is still there. Here's why: (From the Alesis Website)

The Alesis ADAT File Streaming Technology, or ADAT/FST, records onto hard drives in a unique way designed from the ground up for multitrack audio. Many other hard disk recorders use the Microsoft-designed FAT32 or Apple's HFS+ file format. Since these were originally designed for the relatively small data files used in personal computers, not for real-time multitrack recording and playback, they break up audio into many small files scattered across the disk. Alesis ADAT/FST keeps all tracks of a song in large associated clusters on the hard disk, so the disk doesn't have to "hunt" all over during recording and playback.

My best suggestion is to contact Alesis Tech support. If there is any chance that the data still exists, they will be able to tell you where to send the drive or what you might be able to do to restore the tracks. I do not think that a company such as Drive Savers would be able to pull the data off without consulting with Alesis, but who knows... these guys are the best in the business.

Wish there was better news for you...

Good luck.

just out of curiousity,
how did your hd24 drive get formatted by a pc anyways?!? i just bought one of these and would like to know what not to do!

If you place one of the FST formatted drives into your PC computer it will not recognize the file allocation table system on that hard drive and ask you if you want to " format this drive?". Of course sometimes people click yes and it is the click of death.

Remy Ann David

It's not that easy Remy -

on newer systems, you actually have to use a boot CD from Windows or from the disc manufacturer. Win 2K and XP see the disc but don't give you the option to format because you need a low-level format (something which the Windows format utility is incapable of doing.)

However, if you have only performed the short format and haven't written any new data to the drive you might be in luck.

Contact Rich Mays. He has recovered HD24 drives in the past. Last I recall, he sent it to a dude here in the VA area and that guy got into it using a Unix based system (which apparently works okay with the FST format).

It's worth a try. If he doesn't catch this thread (and he probably won't), then google him and try Sonare Recordings too.

J.