Updater development temporarily postponed

[taco-man]

When i came home today i was greeted by a dead hard drive. if/until i can afford to get the data recovered from the hard drive i have no way to continue developing the updater for eq2map. im not sure how much it costs to recover data from hard drives but i doubt its cheap and the hard drive had a little over 200gb of data on it so it is probably too expensive for me to afford so it looks like .97 is the final version of the updater.

EDIT: i was able to recover the source, now i just have to get a new drive(my warrenty just expired 2 months ago).

[dc_roenfanz]

Noooooooooooooooooo

All the reputable disk recovery companies will give you a free evaluation, and if disk recovery is not possible, there will be no charge. Kinda like no-pass, no-charge smog stations ;-)

So best bet is to look up a disk recover-er, take tha drive to them and say, gimme my data! how much! then they look at it and say XX dollars, IF we can do it.

PS: There seems to be a nifty article here:pcstats.com regarding Disk Recovery.

[Quib]

Ack! And I feel your pain, I've lost much important programming thanks to failing harddrives (I miss you Ever-Bot source code!).

If you decide that you can't afford paying a data recovery service, consider the following last ditch data recovery method:
1) put the dead HD in 2 or 3 ziplock bags
2) put the HD in freezer for 2 or 3 hours
3) remove from freezer and immediately hook up to computer (that's been off for a while and is cooled down)

This will occasionally get you 2-3 minutes of time to grab data off the HD before it dies again and will often make any data recovery thereafter impossible.

Quib

[Laffs]

Are the platters stuck? If its making a clicking noise then they are I have got one working again to recover data by giving the side of it a sharp tap with the handle of a medium sized screwdriver lol

Or if the pcb is blown.. You can find a drive of the same make and model and swap the pcb's over done that before as well.... some make's are more sensitive than other's ie normaly most WD drives are compatable with other WD models... where as IBM stuff is very choosey...

[dc_roenfanz]

Regarding that nifty article, it is very well written. So what kinda "dead" are we talking about? Just wont boot up? you can prolly add it to another machine and gleam data from it. No other machine available? (ok im assuming there is, because you were able to post in the first place) You can also get a DOS boot disk (ie Floppy) and work it from there. Consult that artcle I was talkin about. its berry nice.

D

PS: Good luck

[taco-man]

it doesnt make any noise or anything, it shows up in my computer but it cant access it and if i look at the properties it says it has 0/0 bytes of space and that the format is RAW . if i try and open it, it tells me that the disk isnt formatted, or sometimes it says it cant access the device bad parameter.

[Hydron]

Easy to fix.

Get r-studio and recover it. The only problem is that you will have to buy it to recover anything larger then 64k. However, You can get the demo so you can atleast see that it works.

I have seen this program work several miracle recoveries so I feel fairly confident it will fix you right up.

http://www.data-recovery-software.ne...oad.shtml#demo

Mind you this only works if you disks actually spins. It does work even if it is a minor hardware fairlure so long as it can read something. I would give it a shot.

Then, after you have recovered it, I would suggest making a backup hehe (atleast email the source to a close friend after large updates or something)

[dc_roenfanz]

Originally Posted by taco-man

it doesnt make any noise or anything, it shows up in my computer but it cant access it and if i look at the properties it says it has 0/0 bytes of space and that the format is RAW . if i try and open it, it tells me that the disk isnt formatted, or sometimes it says it cant access the device bad parameter.

Edit: Ignore everything I said and listen to the guy underneath me. Heh. He gots moor edukayshon den me gots.

D

[Chumba]

STOP!

1) dont touch the drive in terms of trying to access it. remove it. Your MBR and disk main table are corrupted.

2) If you can, get a KNoppix recovery disk - thats Linux disk that can boot your machine. Download the ISO and burn it.

3) Get another hard drive - smallest, cheapest, old, whatever - shouyldnt cost you more than $20 at a used shop.

4) Install that as the primary drive, use the Knoppix disk to format it to FAT32 format on one single large partition that takes the whole disk.

5) Put the "broken" drive back in (after a trip to the freezer), but hook it as a SLAVE (check the jumpers and put it on the correct part of the cable).

6) Boot from the Knoppix Recovery disk - it should help you get to your data. Copy the important stuff to the "new" drive.

7) once thats done, with KNoppix you shoudl beable to acces the internet - upload the data (source code) for safekeeping - maybe to here, or to a "free" place - there are places that let you use a gig to 5 gigs for online storage.

8) Reformat/whatever, get your OS reinstalled on a NEW hard drive.

And, most importantly...

9) Unless you have good reasons to the contrary, Start an Open Source project on Sourceforge, learn to use CVS remotely, upload your code, and back your stuff up to CVS on a regular basis.

Don't worry about open source - You dont need to let anyone else add things to it - you can make yourself the only submitter for changes. All this means is that if somone else wants to take your code and build it themsleves they can. You dont have to take patches or anything from anyone other than yourself.


I've helped people thru this before. This is what you need to do if there is anything recoverable.

If you have a gmail account, email me - I can send you all the software you need to do this with, as a cd image ready to burn (bootable, with a menu system). its about 300MB or so (been a while, so it may be smaller now).

[thiedon]

Hey man I think what you got going here is great. There have been many times that I didnt know where to find a NPC and got frustrated asking people where they are. Now with this new database collection I can just look it up and go.

I have data recovering software, and I can recover most files using an advanced scan on the hard drive. Data recovery takes place at the ghost level partition of the hard drive. Often time you can recover missing files that you need, but you can't really fully recover system files and settings or partitions. I have recovered a partition and the system files before but the system was all corrupted and didnt run right. The files on the other hand were complete and in working order.

email me: [email protected]
or msn: [email protected]
AIM: hercules6969

[diztorded]

Originally Posted by taco-man

it doesnt make any noise or anything, it shows up in my computer but it cant access it and if i look at the properties it says it has 0/0 bytes of space and that the format is RAW . if i try and open it, it tells me that the disk isnt formatted, or sometimes it says it cant access the device bad parameter.

Yeah brother, it does sound like the partition table was wiped. All the info should be there. This has happened to me a few times. I ended up getting a partition freeware boot disk, rebooting onto it, rebuilding it by hand.. not all the files, just the partition info. When I rebooted, all the files where there.

The program was Randish or something like that.

[taco-man]

the good news is, i was able to recover the source code using getdataback, which was lucky because there were alot of places the software couldnt access from really jacked up sectors, but my drives warranty expied 2 months ago so i have to find a new drive, which will probably be sometime this weekend i hope. so it looks like i will be able to continue working on the updater again once i replace the hard drive. does anyone know how reliable segate is? the one that died on me was a maxtor, and i definately dont want western digital, my friend had 2 of thier drives die on him, one was only a month old, another about a year old, and i had one that was doa when i was putting together a cheap computer for a friend

[Laffs]

Pleased to hear you got the "important" data back

As for hard new hard drives, I think it all comes down to who supplies them! I have had all the main brands from one supplier only to have them all fail at random reguardless of make.. Where as other suppliers all the IBM ones have been bad , another all the seagate etc etc..... Myself I use WD drives they are a tiny bit slower but I have seen some like 6 year old still working fine lol

All I can say is there is only one place I have found that supplies good OEM hard drives but they are a UK based company that will send overseas (I think) if you would like there site addy send me a pm ..... Failing that if you want a reliable drive avoid IBM, HP or any other hybrid of that company.... And make sure its not OEM as for seagate the newer drives seem to be built better than they were a few years back..

Thanks just in my exp.... I know alot would dissagre... Myabe thats of some help to you.

[lovejoyb20]

I'm sorry to hear about your hard drive. That sucks. The only advice I can give you going forward is to buy at least 2 hard drives and set them up as a RAID-1 Mirror, or even better yet, buy 3 hard drives and set them up RAID-5. Of course, you have to get a RAID controller card if you don't already have one, but it is the best investment you will ever make if you have critical data that you want to make sure you never lose.

[Kobara]

Seagate Hard Drives were the front-runners in the HD business long before anyone heard of WesternDigital and when Maxtor only made cassette tapes as a business.

I use 2 Seagates on my system and have not had issues in 5 years (dating the longest continuous-use one). My system is on 24-7 so that is a long time between failures

Of course, HDs are like women... every one has its own mileage and yours may vary.

/em ****Ducks****

PS--- Always Backup Data frequently to an external storage medium, unless you have nothing on your system that you would miss if the computer burned up in a fire.

[Killarny]

Every Maxtor drive I've ever had the misfortune of owning has died on me within a year. I'll probably never buy Maxtor again Three out of three of their hard drives dying is a bad omen

I've been using Western Digital drives for years with no issues though. One of my drives (a 6GB) has been around for probably 4 years or more, through multiple different computers.

[Xorith]

Honestly, it's really a myth anymore about drive quality when you're talking the cheap EIDE drives found in most stores. I used to be an on-call tech for a local shop, and he had gone through every brand out there: Seagate, WD, Maxtor, Quantum, etc. and had the same results. He'd buy 10 at a time, and he'd have to send back at most 2 out of each lot. The problem is that manufacturers are trying to mass-market cheap hardware these days, and that means the hardware sold to regular end-users is less quality than what it was 5 to 10 years ago.

If I were you, I'd find whatever manufacturer has the longest warranty on their drives, and go with them.

As far as Seagate: When I worked at a tech shop a few years back, my job was to bring these small Intel Net PCs up to spec for use in the medical industry. We'd run extensive burn-in testing on the systems (12+ hours) and then replace anything that failed, if possible. While I saw a lot of dead Seagate drives, we never had a problem getting them replaced under warranty. Keep in mind, these systems had been running non-stop for at least 2 years, probably with extensive disk usage as they were the sort of machines used in ultrasound and heart monitoring machines. They probably kept logs of everything.

I also can't speak bad about WD. I have a WD 20G drive in my system now, and it's given me no problems at all. We used to only offer WD drives to our 'low-end' builds in that same shop, and again - it was maybe 1 or 2 out of every 10 that were Dead On Delivery. We also backed our machines for hardware for a year in-house, and offered assistance with getting out-of-house warranty replacements (customer paid for labor). Again, never really saw any of the machines we built come back with hard drive issues.

The one brand everyone has had bad things to say about is Maxtor. I can't speak from experience here, as I've never owned one, but I've seen many dead maxtors floating around various shops I've worked at/been to.

Hope any of this helps. :P

[Kulamin]

Which HD to buy could start a war, but I'll chime in. I work in the IT industry as well as having built a ton of computers/hacked Tivos/etc. Whenever possible I choose Seagate. Granted, I have been lucky, but I have yet to have a Seagate fail on me (including some Barracuda SCSI drives that have been running pretty much non-stop for 5 years). And more then that, their warranty. Seagate is 5 years, most drive companies are 1-2 years.

The drive I would avoid like the plague (in EQ2 or RL) are Maxtors. 8 times out of 10 if a PC comes in with a dead drive it’s a Maxtor. The 9th is a WD and the 10th its whatever. Personally I have also had a lot of WD's fail on me - including one that lasted less then a year in a Tivo (24 hour day). And the replacement they sent for warranty was a refurb, but that is pretty much standard for any company.

All things said, your mileage may vary.

[Laffs]

I use 2 Seagates on my system and have not had issues in 5 years (dating the longest continuous-use one). My system is on 24-7 so that is a long time between failures

Its because your system is on 24-7 that they lasted so well its the warming up and cooling down that breaks things... Same as the gas in a lightbulb if you switch it off and on it will drasticly shorten its life...

If you ever noticed its very rare that a drive that is going to break mechcanicly ever does so when its on ! always when you come to power it back up ......(same rule dont apply to crc's, part tables etc, Thats down to other causes)

Like I say not all would agree with me lol.... But I may add I have a seagate that is 8gig and probably around 5 yr old as well (its the one with the little rubber jacket on remember those?) and thats still working fine where as its former exactly the same lasted only 8 months /shrug

[Xorith]

Laffs is right - it's also why I don't allow Windows to 'power save' my hard drive by shutting it down. Also keep in mind that too much heat is a bad thing.

[mad]

Glad you are getting it worked out. I myself own the following drives currently all are in daily use, WD (74Gig 10,000RPM Raptor), Maxtor (1-30gig 1-40gig 2-80gig), Seagate (200gig), and a Hitachi (250gig bought 2 days ago :P ) I use to only buy Maxtor. Out of all the HD's I have had over the last 10 years I have only had one fail ever, maybe it is luck idk but my understanding is that life expectancy is supposedly up over past drives. The WD and the Hitachi are both SATA drives and to anyone wanting a nice fast drive without going SCSI I highly recommend the Raptor. It screams, I am considering adding a second one and doing a performance based raid layout. Not recommended for data security lol.

Anyways, I think as long as you go with a major brand you shouldn't have too many problems, and when possible don't buy OEM mainly because the warranty, usually only one year when normally you get 3.

[Quib]

Maxtor and WD, assuming you don't get a DOA drive, are the most reliable over a long time. Seagate was (and still is as far as I recall) the most cutting edge and I'd rank second for reliability (I've had 2 die unfortunately, the only 2 HDs I've lost, but their replacements are working great). Pretty much any other brand I'd say don't trust based on the brand; if they don't die after X amount of time, they're probably good for a long while. Between 6 computers in my house I have 2 Seagate, 1 WD and 6 Maxtor. After about 2 or 3 years the Maxtors start really slowing down but I have a computer with 2 Maxtor HDs from 1998 and they still work (they're just slow as dirt now, have never had any errors). I did have 1 Maxtor light on fire (literally) once, but it wasn't the hard drive's fault (a mouse got in the computer and touched too much stuff... it was horrible after I figured out what the black lump was... weeks later).

Quib

[Draco-1]

In all my years int he PC industry, I've found that people seem to have runs of luck (good or bad) with particular manufacturers. Some people swear by Maxtor, I wouldn't buy one. However, the best drives I ever used (before my raptors) were IBM Deskstars. Believe it or not, I've NEVER had one die on me, and friend's shop sold those exsclusively with no problems.. In 5 years, I think he sent 3 back. If IBM was still in the HDD biz, he's still be putting them in the machines he sells.

Now a-days, I reccomend Seagate. They are reliable and fast. Unfortunately, they didn't have a 10K SATA product when I built my machine, so I have dual 36G Raptors (RAID 0).

As an aside for those looking to build a machine in the near future, look at the nForce4 chipset and the Intel 955. They will be working RAID 5 into desktop motherboards, and that will give you the speed of striping with full data protection.

[Dolby]

Good to hear you got the data back! You may want to store a backup of the source on maps.eq2interface.com and just protect it with .htaccess. Our server backups our data too on a 2nd drive.

Very weird Taco-Man, I just had my Maxtor 200gb that was connected to my NSU (Network Storage Unit) drive go about the same time you posted this. I had just deleted the backups on a different drive because I was going to use it for something else. Luckly I didnt touch the drive and was able to un-delete it.

I have about 5 WD's (2 raptors) and none have failed yet, 2 seagates and none have failed and they are wisper quiet, 2 Maxtors and 1 has failed just recently. So I dont think its the manfacture you pick its just the luck of the draw really.

[taco-man]

thanks everyone for the advice on hard drives, im going to go ahead and get 2 200gb segates and raid controller.
also i am going to start using sourceforge for the updater so i should be ok as far as backups go.