+JonathanRL 974 Posted August 20, 2012 This is another one filed under "do backup your stuff." My computer is currently at the speed of a dozy anthill, with it creating a temporary profile every time I start the computer. The problem is that the temp profile has the same name as my usual one, and as thus - has overwritten my last one (Yes, I double checked that). And if you restart, it creates another one. As such, the 75% Anatollian project is lost, and I do not have the energy to try and do it again. I also lost my select stock of A-Team models, saved since I lost access to the site. Latest patch for TSF is also gone, but that one was alot of theory first, now that I know how to do it properly, it will be restored in no time. So remember my lession. BACKUP YOUR STUFF! LISTEN TO DAVE! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Erik 1,812 Posted August 20, 2012 Buy a new drive to put your OS on. Slave your old drive. The file system should be intact so you can get at your files. Good luck it's still a PITA no matter how you look at it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Muesli 2,161 Posted August 20, 2012 Put your OS on an SSD, and preferrably replace all your HDDs with SSDs. Being storage devices without moving parts, i.m.h.o. you safeguard your files better and improve the performances of your machine. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+JonathanRL 974 Posted August 20, 2012 The file system is not intact, at least not the Thirdwire part. You see, I can access the computer just fine. It´s just slow. OS also works, abeit not "fine": The way W7 stores files is in Profiles. When my computer created a new profile (Temporary as it said), it used the same name and instead of naming it "TEMP-Jonathan" or something, it just named it Jonathan. Since there was another profile by that name it deleted the old content and moved in the new one. Belive me, I searched for one and a half hour before posting the thread. SSD and all that might be a good way for the future but it wont help the current situation. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gillg 4 Posted August 20, 2012 Jono, I feel for you mate. This has happened to me once and I lost a hell of a lot of SF and WoE stuff. THIS SUCKS!!. Good luck with rebuilding mate. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+daddyairplanes 10,252 Posted August 20, 2012 you could try undeleting. i use iobit mainly for the shredder, but you wouldn't believe some of the files that pop up when i use the undelete function (WHAT! i haven't watche 3 brazilians and a cucumber in 3 years!?!?!?!) other than that as you said its important to back up. sorry to here about this... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Stary 2,427 Posted August 20, 2012 geez sad event JRL... I hope you can somehow restore your profile data using your drive as a slave lesson learned: never ever keep the important stuff in system-depending folders! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MAKO69 186 Posted August 20, 2012 Buy a new drive to put your OS on. Slave your old drive. The file system should be intact so you can get at your files. Good luck it's still a PITA no matter how you look at it. You can get extrernal hard drives for like 50 to 80 bucks at BestBuy. Good luck Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lazarus1177 164 Posted August 20, 2012 Nothing more frustrating than a slow hard drive and some loss of valuable data.Hope you get through without further dis-comfort. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gr.Viper 131 Posted August 20, 2012 lesson learned: never ever keep the important stuff in system-depending folders! General rule of sanity under Windows is never install programs into Program Files and never keep documents in My Documents. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DarthRevan 3 Posted August 20, 2012 That's really sad to hear. I do like you TSF stuff. I hope it will get solved for you. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted August 20, 2012 Two words for the future...online backup. There are several services that allow a ridiculous amount of online storage space for free. I use these services to store stuff I wouldn't mind if it went public, but would be annoyed if I lost (like my modding stuff). Some even have auto sync and will auto update everytime you change a file. I'm surprised more folks don't do this for non personal stuff. Sorry to hear about your computer issues. FC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+JonathanRL 974 Posted August 20, 2012 Computer rebooted. Tried both before and after to save the Anatolian campaign. No joy there. The main .ini is saved, but not the data file - the one containing the many hours of ground, air and naval war. TSF patch is also a goner but that will just take an hour or so do do all over again. At least now the computer works like it should... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wrench 9,857 Posted August 20, 2012 everyone should own one of these: http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/266 you don't have to be IT Guru (and I sure as hell aint!!). When the XP machine croaked, and I got the new one, I just yanked the HD, plugged in the correct adaptors, and right into the USB port. Was able to save EVERYTHING!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted August 21, 2012 I have the USB 3.0 version since my PC has USB 3 ports. I also have a USB 3 Seagate external 1TB Goflex drive. Both screaming fast! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Typhoid 231 Posted August 21, 2012 (edited) I have the USB 3.0 version since my PC has USB 3 ports. I also have a USB 3 Seagate external 1TB Goflex drive. Both screaming fast! ditto. I finally got around to upgrading my computer to be handle all this stuff on high graphics settings. Works great now. The new board also came with a couple of USB3 ports so I added an external drive with auto backup. There is enough space on it to manually back up a copy of things that I want to ensure keeping. My computer also has two hard drives, so while drive C runs everything - all the documents, including My Documents, are on the E drive. This has saved all my files from all sorts of upgrades and rebuilds. A fault such as a renamed profile does not touch the E drive. I've reloaded XP a couple of times and loaded W7 twice without losing anything except what was on the C drive. Back up. Back up. Back up. It is not a question of IF a computer will crash. It is a matter of WHEN a computer will crash and whether you've saved everything in a safe location. Jonathan, sorry to hear that. Edited August 21, 2012 by Typhoid Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted August 21, 2012 FWIW, you can avoid crashes if you redo your PC often enough. Old parts = asking to fail, not that new ones don't, but they usually fail fast. So if you go a couple of months, you're fine for a few years. Don't go past 3 years though or you're on borrowed time! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+logan4 847 Posted August 21, 2012 (edited) Jonathan, if you have program such as Active@ partition recovery enterprise/ or professionall then you might be able to save the files from your HDD even if w7 overwritten your profile. It has an addition called "Active@ File recovery" which will do the trick for you. The freeware version unfortunately does not have this specific part but might be able to see that the file structure is there where it should be. If the disk is healty otherwise the program is able to see down to 2-4 level of deletion/reformating. But even with this there could be some which are unrecoverable. When my HDD and external drive died I was able to save about 65-85% of the data without file damage or loss even after 2 reformating. The other option what Wrench wrote can work as well. Edited August 21, 2012 by logan4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eraser_tr 29 Posted August 21, 2012 Sorry to hear, I had a problem a few weeks ago back at the end of July. My windows 7 drive died on me, file system and everything, which also screwed up booting to XP forcing me to reformat that and buy a whole new drive to replace the old one. Thankfully nothing from SF2 was lost, but there were casualties in other areas. Maybe I ought to try plugging it back in now with the system fine and using these programs to try and get stuff back. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+SkateZilla 49 Posted August 22, 2012 (edited) GetDataback NTFS = Your Best Friend, Just stop Writing to the Drive, hook it as a non Boot drive in another system, run GDB,Ntfs Full scan, and your gold. unless you write 0s to your drive, or over write the sectors, your data is technically still there. if only it was where it's at now, back in 2004, I wouldnt have lost 5 years worth of video editing footage. (Since Reformated and Filled up the drive, so the data is essentially gone). Edited August 22, 2012 by SkateZilla Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FastCargo 412 Posted September 18, 2012 Due to Wrench, The recent problems with his HD reminded me to tell folks about this product: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allway_Sync It is a free program that can sync folders, drives, computers. It does auto, scheduled, timed, differenced, etc. Heck, it can even do a sync just based on detecting a new external drive being plugged in or keyboard inactivity. You can tell it to not overwrite or delete files on the backup drive (or backup drives!) if you're worried about deleting something too soon. Basically, it is the same as if you were running a RAID setup, but with even more control. If you can afford an external drive to backup (even on a different computer on your network), there is no reason you should lose ANY data...it makes it as painless as possible. FC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nesher 628 Posted September 18, 2012 lucky for me I had a second hard drive crash in less than 6 months this time R-STUDIO saved the day, restored more than 1TB of data... backup backup backup.. when ever you can (I do that for the most important things like photos, documents) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites