A CALL FOR HELP

[Taelon]

Originally posted by mal+Jul 19, 2003 @ 06:44 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mal @ Jul 19, 2003 @ 06:44 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Taelon@Jul 19, 2003 @ 07:02 AM

After all, some of you know me from DC++ where I (used to) hang out day and night and let people download my shared files. Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask.

Have you asked your loyal fans from the hub for donations?

You have my sympathy - losing a drive would suck - but asking for financial assistance?

[/b][/quote]

OK, OK - everybody forget I ever asked for such a thing as dineros.

Yeah, I actually understand how that must have sounded. Feeling kinda stupid for it now...

But, mal - has it occurred to you that I lost all of my favorite hub/login/password stuff for DC++?

That I have nothing to share, and am likely to be disconnected/banned for not meeting the minimum share? Huh? Huh?

Ah... But things are looking up, actually. I "slipstreamed" my WinXP setup CD, integrating SP1a into it so last night I did a virgin install of XP with SP1a already included, no messy updates/reverted settings/tons of duplicates in the dllcache directory and whatnot. AND I'm thinking of purchasing Acronis TrueImage - if only I had known about what a pile of shit Microsoft's backup is!!

 

[Taelon]

Originally posted by Myname@Jul 19, 2003 @ 10:52 AM

Some folk have no pride I guess.. Going around begging for cash because your hard drive broke down seems pretty low when there's people starving in the world.

I'm gonna be quiet now before I get more pissed off..

Geez

I'm sorry I bugged you that much with my request... just forget about it please. I already said I feel dumb for it and to forget all about it... I got no problem spending $100 for a directory listing, and after that we'll see how much the actual recovery is.

Just don't get pissed at me.

Jurai: thanks for the tip (you surprised me! LOL)... Unfortunately I'm already past the point where the BIOS or Windows still see the WD drive. I just had the worst luck with everything that morning - my first impulse was to run chkdsk etc. and I realized much too late that the HD was physically dying - I only made matters worse....

So... Um....

Anybody else wanna share their horror stories?

 

[Alexvrb]

Horror stories... hmm... don't have any relating to HDDs. Sorry about your HD dying on you, man. Shit happens, right? The only HD I ever had die on me that wasn't ancient (like my old 500MB drive, heavily used, died of natural causes) was a 10GB 5400 RPM seagate that came with this old Compaq. It didn't die all at once, either, it would now and then go click click click and spin down, making windows bluescreen and tell you that the HD was toast, lol. Anyway it would power on and run for long enough that I (within 3 reboots) got all the important crap off it. Chucked it, threw in a 20GB 7200 RPM drive, and the beast still works like a charm to this day (though I haven't used it in ages, its not mine anymore).

On the side note, I ripped Robo Pit and Warcraft II for Saturn, and have more games to rip later. Heh.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

a few months ago, my bosses computer stopped working... come to find out the surge protector they were using wasn't a surge protector... and we'd had an electrical storm the night before. I figured it was just the motherboard that was toast, but it turns out it fried pretty much everything (including the PSU). I built a new pc from the ground up except the hdd which looked like it was working and it worked fine for about 2 days... when the hdd completely died. Moral of the story... GET SURGE PROTECTORS.

 

[Jurai]

Try diskexplorer anyway, it may work for you as long as windows will boot with the drive connected

 

[Jurai]

Fyi, my drive lasted with the clicking for atleast 2 weeks before it reached the point that windows wouldn't list files, as long as you can boot it and it will spin disk explorer can address it through the ide bus and recover files tho

 

[mal]

Originally posted by Taelon@Jul 21, 2003 @ 05:52 AM

But, mal - has it occurred to you that I lost all of my favorite hub/login/password stuff for DC++?

That I have nothing to share, and am likely to be disconnected/banned for not meeting the minimum share? Huh? Huh?

I thought that being an op meant that you could bend the rules.

Anyway, nothing to share? I'm sure you've got plenty to rip.

 

[Myname]

Originally posted by Taelon@Jul 21, 2003 @ 03:56 AM

Geez

I'm sorry I bugged you that much with my request... just forget about it please. I already said I feel dumb for it and to forget all about it... I got no problem spending $100 for a directory listing, and after that we'll see how much the actual recovery is.

Just don't get pissed at me.

Don't worry about it, just got up my nose a bit. Maybe I was anticipating everyone who broke their Saturn's trying to mod them asking the community to buy them a new console

 

[ExCyber]

Unfortunately I'm already past the point where the BIOS or Windows still see the WD drive.

Looking on the bright side, that's likely an electronics problem, which typically costs less for a data recovery company to fix than an actual crash (since they "only" have to connect a working PCB).

 

[Burning Angel]

Originally posted by Myname@Jul 21, 2003 @ 09:30 AM

Maybe I was anticipating everyone who broke their Saturn's trying to mod them asking the community to buy them a new console

Hmmm...

1) Taelon you have my sympaty. I'm sorry to hear of your loss, and hope there is a way to recover your info. I had one problem last month, I didn't had a backup power supply, the energy went out while I was turning my PC off. Unfortunatly my PC started as usual but at some point it crashed and stopped Windows from loading (I have Win XP Pro) telling me that I should call up for assistance. Instead I tried several things, but I couldn't even start in Failsafe mode!!!

When I was loosing hope I tried the last resort- Reintalling Windows

, but then I remembered that maybe the last working configuration should work, I got to the DOS mode and the System couldn't even find partition c: !!!! I managed to recover the last working configuration (don't ask me how, I was a desperate man and I cannot remember it hehehe

), then it let me start in failsafe mode and finally got over it- But the anguish, desperation and the though I lost my entire HD was so awful I can understand your first call for help -even finantial help. No one who has not passed through the loss of all their info can understand it - worst when the next scheduled backup was just a few hours from the crash

2)Myname, these are two different situations. While THIS is clearly an accident, no one except of the manufacturer is involved

, the act of failing to MOD a Saturn is the result of sheer stupidity:

NO ONE orders you to do it, and before starting, it is stated that you should do it under your own risk. You success, fine, you fail, that's your problem.

I don't think there is anyone so stupid or with so little pride and principles to ask for money to cover their own stupidities

 

[racketboy]

Hey do you have anything to cool your HD?

Might make your drive live longer

I'm thinking about adding a cooler to my server project

 

[Myname]

Originally posted by Burning Angel@Jul 22, 2003 @ 01:06 AM

Myname, these are two different situations. While THIS is clearly an accident, no one except of the manufacturer is involved

, the act of failing to MOD a Saturn is the result of sheer stupidity:

NO ONE orders you to do it, and before starting, it is stated that you should do it under your own risk. You success, fine, you fail, that's your problem.

I'm well aware of that, thankyou

.

The fact is, in neither situation is it proper or valid to ask your friends to cover the cost. If my car broke down and it was the manufacturer's fault, would you expect me to come on here and ask for others to pay for it?

As far as I was concerned that was the end of the issue, but cheers for digging it back up.

 

[Burning Angel]

I hope everything turns OK with your HD.

I know what it feels to loose your info, I once had an old P 233 MMX and my dog decided to eat the wires- while they where still attached to the PC and it was still on!!!

The HD was completly scratched because the PC fell from my desk and I lost both the HD AND ironicly... The backup CD I was doing -doh

 

[Taelon]

Wow, how's that for horror stories. Heh.

...Anyway, seems I'm almost back to where I was before That Fateful Day(tm) - Mozilla is up and running on my newly configured WinXP Pro/SP1a install... I have email.. I have DC++ back (including my hubs and logins and settings, whew).... Reintegrating the two-week-old backup I had into this fresh install of everything is a shitload of work but DAMN, it feels good to be rising from the ashes.

You're right, mal, I do have a lot to rip and share. It just sickens me to have to do all this stuff again, I had JUST gone through a ripping/raring marathon before the crash

Whoever mentioned HD cooling, good point... once I put my new Maxtor 120GB HD in, I noticed it was running EXTREMELY hot within a short time... it was then that I redid the whole cabling inside the case and added another exhaust fan PLUS I took the cover off the second 3.5" bay (underneath my floppy drive) because that way, cool air is sucked in right over the Maxtor drive and exhausted through the side fan. Makes a world of difference

it's nice and cool now. I'm beginning to think that a heat pocket was the true cause of my Western Digital's demise.

I've thought about getting a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for a long time, definitely thinking harder about that now as well... alas, I pretty much just ran out and spent money on the new harddisk, another cooling kit and an Antec True430 power supply to replace the generic one in my system - another boost for stability and protection from wonky currents, I'm hoping.

Last but not least I bought and downloaded Acronis TrueImage a couple nights ago... that's one nifty program

it's so easy making images of my system partition, I've already made seven full backups to my slave drive throughout the process of re-tweaking my system... kind of an overkill System Restore if you will.

So all's good.... With a few exceptions (and my complete share folder plus recent downloads), I got it all back... thank God I have most of my email, passwords, bookmarks and all that stuff still with me....

[voice of Gloria Gaynor] I WILL SURVIVE!!

 

[vbt]

At least OnTrack is willing to retrieve a complete file listing from my WD for just $100 (after that, I have the option to decide whether to have them actually recover the filesystem, and file for bankruptcy while I'm at it).

I have EasyRecovery Pro 6.03 or I can give you a link where you can download it, it works fine I recovered 95% of data with it 🙂 It's always sad when you loose data like that, I never make backup and was really and was really angry. Hopefully ERP work so good even if I find it a little slow.

 

[googlefest1]

ive never used backup progies -- if i lost info i lost it -- do those progs like the one you mention make backups in cds or dvds?

 

[Taelon]

I heard of EasyRecovery, but to repeat what I already said... my HD was shot to the point that the BIOS wouldn't even see it anymore - can't use disk tools if you don't see the disk now, can you... That said, I did buy Acronis TrueImage which makes sector-based images of HD partitions from inside Windows XP (no booting to DOS!) much like Ghost or DriveImage do. A fine program...

And yes, most backup software will write to other HDs, tape drives, external (USB/Firewire) drives, CDRW and DVD... Depends on each program of course. Also note that there are two basic approaches to backing up: file-by-file (traditional backup), or sector-by-sector (imaging)...

Anyway... The nightmare is officially over. I'm alive and kicking, my computer works great, including the new HD, I have much better cooling and a kickass Antec power supply which has much more stable and accurate voltages than the generic PSU I had until a few days ago... Heck, in a way I'm almost glad my old HD crashed because it prompted me to do all these upgrades and tweaks. 🙂 🙂