About three months ago I was trying to convert a show I'd taped in Albany and I was getting these weird clicks and pops all over the recording. Zooming in on the wave form I could see that it would be running along smoothly and then randomly jump up and back down, so instead of gently sloping up ___/```\___ it would just jump ____------____. Bad ASCII rendition, I know. Also bad transfer.
So over the next eight weeks I tried just about everything. I used different decks. I tried converting different shows. I switched digital cables, USB cables, USB ports on my computer. I booted into OS X, I booted into Classic. I reverted to an older version of my software and looked for upgrades. Recorded to my main hard drive and a secondary hard drive. Changed software completely. Downloaded new drivers for my sound card. Spent $200 on a new one. I now know Guster 10-30-03 like the back of my hand, now that I've converted it easily a dozen times and listened carefully for clicks and pops. (Side note: How well do you really know the back of your hand? Is this something people study on a regular basis? I don't have any particularly identifying marks on the back of my hand, to the point where I could pick it out of a lineup of other hands.)
Finally, someone suggested bad RAM. I bought this thing less than a year ago - a 512MB Kingston ValueRAM chip. Popped it out, ran a transfer, smooth as butter. Popped it back in and took out one of the three-year-old 64MB chips that came with the computer, snap-crackle-pop. The 512MB RAM was the culprit. So now it's sitting in my desk, and though my machine has slowed to a crawl without 80% of its memory, it's rock-solid and transferring fine again. Whew.
Thank G-d. Gusterfans everywhere were waiting impatiently for your transfers to work so that they can get their live fix on archiveDOTorg. It's like your some sort of dealer or something.