in need of major help!!!

[gullyjewelz]

everytime i get pain-stakingly close to being "finished" with a project - something nearly catastrophic goes wrong -

was just doin a post about my new project finally bein finished and now the computer's drive wehre i placed all the files is DEAD -
hopefully there is a computer guru somewhere who can at least retrieve the files - anyone got any know how bout this?

[D-Gravity]

not to worry G, ther are a lotta software for file recovery. try gettin some of those on download or search for it. it can recover files dat u thot u ll never will.. hope it goes okay wit you.. u already know it, then sorry man. i d also suggest fo a computer guru. peace.

[BeatsBuY]

Is the drive dead? Meaning no power and not moving? Then you need to go to a certified computer repair center. They can recover your data for you. But, the draw back is will cost you. It might be worth it saving you time.

If the drive if working, like said you can use a disk utility to fix and repair the dive. if you used Norton file saver, it would be even easier to find your files. Files are not really deleted (unless you do a re-format) form the drive. Small data and bites are there. You just have to rebuild the files. What may have happened is the resource fork which helps the drive locate and point to files got corrupted. The files are still there, but the computer can't find them. It's like your computer lost the map to locations and it's just running around looking for it. Use a disk utility to fix that problem.

BUT DO NOT REFORMAT!

A good rule is to backup your sessions every weekend...

[dnkygirl]

Originally Posted by gullyjewelz

everytime i get pain-stakingly close to being "finished" with a project - something nearly catastrophic goes wrong -

was just doin a post about my new project finally bein finished and now the computer's drive wehre i placed all the files is DEAD -
hopefully there is a computer guru somewhere who can at least retrieve the files - anyone got any know how bout this?

oh man.. i'm having a bad weekend too.. my windows install is corrupted. I can't find my os disk... left it in my bro's pc when i was trying to restore his registry. What a weekend.... I would first check to make sure all cables are not loose with the power off of course.... If the drive is not spinning... then it's dead.... I've heard of recovery services.. too, but they are expensive. I have separate drives for everything on my system.. so even thou my os is corrupted i'm not losing anything. I was able to get windows to run cripped... for right now.. but i've got to do a fresh install for sure.. I hate re-installing everything... seems to be a common thing with windows... I swear about 1-2 a year i have to rebuild my system. I do also make backups of all my stuff i really want to keep on dvds and cd's so that if a lose a drive it's not so big of a deal...


Demi

[Mindset]

I used to use a hard drive copy machine thing. It was extremely slow, probably spinning at 1K if even. Might want to put another hard drive in there, install a OS, and recover the data using any of those data recovery programs. Anyways, if you have a thumb drive, you can put an OS on there and boot up to it, and access your data that way. What does it do when you boot up? blue screen of death? does it see your hd at all? or is it truely dead and not powering up. Did you check your power supply?

[BeatsBuY]

Originally Posted by dnkygirl

oh man.. i'm having a bad weekend too.. my windows install is corrupted. I can't find my os disk... left it in my bro's pc when i was trying to restore his registry. What a weekend....

Demi

Man, I feel your pain on that. I hate when an OS gets corrupted. It takes time. And if you have to really start over, you gotta reinstall your apps. But, hopefully you can just restore it from your last good configuration and everything is good. Also good you save all your work on external drives. Smart move...

[bknot1]

if its spinning and clicking then you have bad sectors on the hard drive and you can use one of the Hard drive recovery programs..or take it to a shop...if its not accessing..make sure you didnt change anything in your bio's..shut down and restart the computer to see if it get pick up when restart..if not something is going on..

do your remeber what you did prior to it goin dead> lest start from there..

[dnkygirl]

Originally Posted by BeatsBuY

Man, I feel your pain on that. I hate when an OS gets corrupted. It takes time. And if you have to really start over, you gotta reinstall your apps. But, hopefully you can just restore it from your last good configuration and everything is good. Also good you save all your work on external drives. Smart move...

Unfortunately my last known configuration is corrupted as well.. that's how i was running cripped. I could get into the machine, but only by selecting that from the boot menu. Windows sucks... it truely does... You really have to have a backup plan in progress when using it. There is always a chance of you turning the power on and getting absolutely nothing... Instead of them coming out with newer prettier versions. I really wish they would fix the code causing all the problems. They are only adding to the mess with the new graphics engine. The only time they have addressed any real code problems was the move to NTFS.. and even it has problems still..

This is totally off topic.. i was surprised to learn that if you have protools material on a hard drive that you can not use any defrag utilities on it. That's so not right... over time the system cache creates a huge mess of all the data stored on the drive.


Demi

[Change of POETS]

The price of an external hard drive is so minimal when it comes to things like this. I picked up a 250GB external for my music projects, only. I never have to worry about losing that data now.

[Mindset]

If you get a unmountable boot drive error on the blue screen of death, pop in your OS, and run Repair. At the command prompt, go \winnt or windows\system32\config and then rename system.alt to systemalt.old and also rename system to system.old. to rename, just at the command prompt type in

rename system.alt systemalt.old <enter>

[Change of POETS]

Originally Posted by Mindset

If you get a unmountable boot drive error on the blue screen of death, pop in your OS, and run Repair. At the command prompt, go \winnt or windows\system32\config and then rename system.alt to systemalt.old and also rename system to system.old. to rename, just at the command prompt type in

rename system.alt systemalt.old <enter>

The last 3 times I ran a repair from the boot disk, it wiped the HD clean.

I would suggest that as an absolute last result.

[Mindset]

Originally Posted by Change of POETS

The last 3 times I ran a repair from the boot disk, it wiped the HD clean.

I would suggest that as an absolute last result.

lol, there's 2 repairs options in windows 2000 & windows 2K. I don't know about vista.

The first one lets you repair in command prompt, the second one basically over rights everything windows. Then there's the other options, like formatting, partitioning, etc that wipes everything out and reinstalls if you choose to. When pressing the first R (repair) using a OS, it'll ask you if you want to do some emergancy repair where it auto repairs (w2k/nt) or go to command prompt. In WXP, it asks you to repair using the Recovery Console, which you would manually fix things.
Wiping the hard drive is the last thing you want to do. If the windows is corrupted popping in the disc and doing those things would work on certain screens, I'll say about 80% of the time. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, you'll just receive the same errors as before. the System.alt & system files are special. Once you delete them, they are remade again by windows. These files have the start up information and other junk in it. when you rename it, you preserve a backup if in any case you would need it (which is basically never), instead of typing del system.alt... Anyways, windows xp & 2K have the startup info to get windows running profile saved in there. once they are "missing" the operating system itself replaces them with the same exact file, but newly generated in the original first windows installation.

I forgot, you could also type bootcfg to fix any boot.ini errors causing start up not to see the os install.

I have to do this maybe 10-20 times weekly for different users. not to mention the countless other little problems that these users have.

[dnkygirl]

Originally Posted by Mindset

If you get a unmountable boot drive error on the blue screen of death, pop in your OS, and run Repair. At the command prompt, go \winnt or windows\system32\config and then rename system.alt to systemalt.old and also rename system to system.old. to rename, just at the command prompt type in

rename system.alt systemalt.old <enter>

You can't make these types of changes inside the os... it's attributes are usually set to hidden and read only. That's why they built in the repair console into the setup disk. If you run the repair console you can turn off the attributes of the files:

cd c:\windows (changes directory to Windows)
attrib user.dat -h -r (makes file not hidden/restricted)
attrib system.dat -h -r (same)
cd c:\backup (changes directory to your backup dir)
copy user.dat c:\windows (copy file to backup folder)
copy system.dat c:\windows (same)
copy win.ini c:\windows (same)
copy system.ini c:\windows (same)
cd c:\windows (changes directory to Windows)
attrib user.dat +h +r (gives attributes back to file)
attrib system.dat +h +r (same)


I need to get back into making ghost dvd's. norton ghost really does work.. it's just getting a good backup the first time with it.. is a pain in the butt. Ghost allows you to copy the whole hard drive and all it's contents. Then when something happens you just reimage the drive with your ghost copy.



Demi

[dnkygirl]

There are 3 ways to restore your registry in xp. Either the windows based restore tool located under the accessories/system folder or manually inside the recovery console on the windows cd. The other way is to boot into the cd select repair.. which overwrites the registry and puts the machine back the way it was when you first installed windows. So it's like starting over... but with all your apps still installed.. all dirty...

I personally just wipe my drives... fdisk them... this creates a new boot strap... cause not even those stupid utilities will fix your boot strap if it's damaged. That is the sector located first on the drive..


Demi

[Mindset]

Originally Posted by dnkygirl

You can't make these types of changes inside the os... it's attributes are usually set to hidden and read only. That's why they built in the repair console into the setup disk. If you run the repair console you can turn off the attributes of the files:

cd c:\windows (changes directory to Windows)
attrib user.dat -h -r (makes file not hidden/restricted)
attrib system.dat -h -r (same)
cd c:\backup (changes directory to your backup dir)
copy user.dat c:\windows (copy file to backup folder)
copy system.dat c:\windows (same)
copy win.ini c:\windows (same)
copy system.ini c:\windows (same)
cd c:\windows (changes directory to Windows)
attrib user.dat +h +r (gives attributes back to file)
attrib system.dat +h +r (same)


I need to get back into making ghost dvd's. norton ghost really does work.. it's just getting a good backup the first time with it.. is a pain in the butt. Ghost allows you to copy the whole hard drive and all it's contents. Then when something happens you just reimage the drive with your ghost copy.



Demi

I didn't say do it within' the OS, I'm talking about popping the OS disk itself and running the recovery/repair console. To create a folder like backup like you say, you need to type in md backup, and then you can do cd backup.

And then another thing

cd c:\windows (changes directory to Windows)
attrib user.dat -h -r (makes file not hidden/restricted)
attrib system.dat -h -r (same)
cd c:\backup (changes directory to your backup dir)
copy user.dat c:\windows (copy file to backup folder)
copy system.dat c:\windows (same)
copy win.ini c:\windows (same)
copy system.ini c:\windows (same)
cd c:\windows (changes directory to Windows)
attrib user.dat +h +r (gives attributes back to file)
attrib system.dat +h +r (same)

it goes "copy c:\windows\system.ini", or "copy c:\windows\win.ini" etc... it won't work if you type in "copy system.ini c:\windows"

The reinstallation of windows doesn't overwrites the registry. It reinstalls & re registers .dll files or sort, using the same registry.


Anyways, what is the problem with your computer Gully. Is it showing any visual errors? Any noise from the hard drive? Power supply still feeding power? how old is the HD. More information is needed to properly troubleshoot problems

[dnkygirl]

Originally Posted by Mindset

I didn't say do it within' the OS, I'm talking about popping the OS disk itself and running the recovery/repair console. To create a folder like backup like you say, you need to type in md backup, and then you can do cd backup.

And then another thing



it goes "copy c:\windows\system.ini", or "copy c:\windows\win.ini" etc... it won't work if you type in "copy system.ini c:\windows"

The reinstallation of windows doesn't overwrites the registry. It reinstalls & re registers .dll files or sort, using the same registry.


Anyways, what is the problem with your computer Gully. Is it showing any visual errors? Any noise from the hard drive? Power supply still feeding power? how old is the HD. More information is needed to properly troubleshoot problems

Opps my bad... I looked at them again:

md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default


Within the repair console all the retrictions are not active so you don't have to do the attrib removal. If you want to backup the registry outside of windows you can use those commands from the F8 start into command prompt in safe mode.

Also using the repair selection from the cd does too overwrite the registry along with the dll's. Here's MS spin...: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312369/



Demi

[dnkygirl]

Gully you can also do backups to usb flash drives they are really cheap now.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...sp?CatId=1995&


Demi

[Mindset]

I'm a IT tech too lol @ Solvay Engineered Polymers.

Usually when reinstalling windows on the top of the original windows, it'll still use the same registry key (of course the most recent back up made already). It doesn't actually go in and repair the registry. It takes the copy of the registry from a previous 'working' state from a check point or a backup previously made and replaces the one currently there now. If the original (or backed up registry) was previously corrupted, and the backups are corrupted, than reinstallation does nothing except overwrites like we stated (if it gives you the repair option).


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756

But regardless, I think it would be wise if we knew exactly the condition of the drive, and what exactly was going wrong with it. For all we know this could be hardware related, or the other way around.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341/

Before you perform an in-place upgrade
• Before you follow the steps later in this article, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base if your computer came preinstalled with Windows XP:

312369 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312369/) You may lose data or program settings after reinstalling, repairing, or upgrading Windows XP
• If you perform an in-place upgrade of Windows XP, all existing restore points are removed and a new system checkpoint restore point is created after the in-place upgrade is completed. Do not perform an in-place upgrade if you may have to use System Restore to restore your computer to a previous state.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
301224 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301224/) System Restore 'restore points' are missing or deleted
• Backup copies of your registry files (in the %systemroot%\Repair folder) are also replaced after the in-place upgrade is completed. The registry files in the Repair folder are either from the first time that you started Windows XP or the last time that you used the Backup utility to back up your System State. Copy these registry backups to another location before you perform an in-place upgrade if you may have to use them after the in-place upgrade is completed.
• Do not perform a repair or in-place upgrade to repair a component or program that is not currently installed. If you can, use the Add or Remove Programs tool in Control Panel, or reinstall the component or program instead of Windows.
• If your computer requires a third-party mass storage device driver or HAL, make sure that you have a copy of the files on a floppy disk before you perform a repair or in-place upgrade.
• Do not use a repair or in-place upgrade to try to resolve a problem with a user account, password, or local profile. To determine if the problem is related to a user account, password, or local profile, create another user account (if you can), and then log on to that account to see if the problem is resolved.
• Do not use a repair or in-place upgrade to resolve a problem with third-party programs, files or registry entries.
• Do not use a repair or in-place upgrade if you suspect disk problems.
• Do not use a repair or in-place upgrade if you suspect a problem with a third-party device, and the latest device drivers are currently installed for the device.

Thumb drives are cheap, like she stated, REALLY cheap.... I think there was a 2GB or 1GB drive at Fry's for $9 bucks after rebate. Or next week 1gb for $15 bucks.... They have a 4GB one on sale for $50 or so.

With those, you can back up, or you can run a OS on it, or make it bootable along with fixes you could use.

[Mindset]

Well damn... $40 bucks for 4gb at tiger?? hmmmmm not bad. I think Fry's had the kingston 4GB stick for $50 or some crap.

[Mindset]

Originally Posted by Change of POETS

The price of an external hard drive is so minimal when it comes to things like this. I picked up a 250GB external for my music projects, only. I never have to worry about losing that data now.

Until you run over the thing lol.

[Change of POETS]

Originally Posted by Mindset

Until you run over the thing lol.

Considering it doesn't leave my studio, I don't think it'll be a problem.

[Mindset]

Originally Posted by Change of POETS

Considering it doesn't leave my studio, I don't think it'll be a problem.

Yeah but, what if some client comes in, and throws $100,000 at your feet, and parks his truck in the control room, and runs over it then?

It's ALWAYS good, ALWAYS good, ALWAYS good to have a redundant backup going on. I'm a firm believe in CYA (Cover Your Ass). RAID set up, 300GB external archive, a couple usb drives, and back ups in different locations (PGT & Weatherman has weekly full backups on HD, and 1 on disc and 1 on a server wherever godaddy is located at lol.

[dnkygirl]

Originally Posted by Mindset

I'm a IT tech too lol @ Solvay Engineered Polymers.

Kewl a fellow geekster... ) I work for Crash Rescue Equipment Service, Inc.


Demi

[Change of POETS]

Originally Posted by Mindset

Yeah but, what if some client comes in, and throws $100,000 at your feet, and parks his truck in the control room, and runs over it then?

It's ALWAYS good, ALWAYS good, ALWAYS good to have a redundant backup going on. I'm a firm believe in CYA (Cover Your Ass). RAID set up, 300GB external archive, a couple usb drives, and back ups in different locations (PGT & Weatherman has weekly full backups on HD, and 1 on disc and 1 on a server wherever godaddy is located at lol.

Well, every individual project is backed up to DVD as well. But the master backup is the external drive.

If the client wants more assurance, then they have to pay for it.

[dnkygirl]

Originally Posted by Change of POETS

Well, every individual project is backed up to DVD as well. But the master backup is the external drive.

If the client wants more assurance, then they have to pay for it.

I like that idea.. It allows you to keep there project files.. separate from all the other stuff you are doing. Sweet... your one organized dude... ;o)



Demi