Computer Fun Episode 2

EVA-251 · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:08 am Post subject: Computer Fun Episode 2

Last year about this time, my laptop's motherboard died.

About an hour ago, my laptop froze and when turned back on, would not get past the OEM splash screen. All indications are that my hard-drive is dead.

This will be an enormous setback to RA1.5 (which has moved to YR) and Star Strike, which had a vast amount of WIP content that has most certainly been lost now. I will give more information as it becomes available.

Update 16 July 1807 GMT-5: Hopefully I will be back on my laptop within 3 weeks, with a new cooling pad and hard-drive ready to go!

And if I am lucky, this new hard-drive will have data recovered from the dead one, assuming the freezing trick actually works.

Orac · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:11 am Post subject:

Here's hoping that it's salvageable.
Good luck with the rebuilding.

Everyone feeling like backing up their projects, guys?

Palkia323 · Pyro Sniper **Joined**: 10 May 2008

I'm bout to give my team a PM and tell them to back EVERYTHING up!

Hope it all works out for you, man!

_________________

Dutchygamer · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:25 pm Post subject:

Another reason why I regularly make backups of my most important files, including my mod. Hope you can salvage as much as possible Smile

EVA-251 · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:06 pm Post subject:

Update. The noises I heard were the telltale "click[s] of death". Mechanical failure.

My previous laptop's hard-drive still works and has everything up to about this time last year, and I have sent out betas and teasers to other people from which I should be able to atleast partially recover newer assets from 1.5 and SS.
This and Internet and family computers offer enough redundancy that most of my personal stuff (photos, etc) is still here, with the main casualty seemingly being my academic work over the last year.

All said and done, I'm still out of action until I ensure only the hard-drive was bad and get a replacement drive.

Personally I never backed stuff up because in the 12-13 years I've used computers, I've had exactly 0 hard-drive failures until now. Including one hard-drive that lasted atleast 8 years and would probably still be working had other computer components not rendered the machine as a whole inoperable.

Though I do have a 250gig external and now see a good use for it in the future. Wink

_________________
YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead Developer Star Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007)

Dutchygamer · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:54 pm Post subject:

From what I heard: putting your HDD in a sealed bag, putting it in a freezer, and letting it cool for a while, should make it salvageable for a few moments after restarting it. I haven't tried it myself, but a colleague of mine had the same, and it was one of the solutions I found. Of course, I know it sounds silly, and I don't know if it works, so I'm not responsible if it doesn't work afterwards #Tongue

FurryQueen · General **Also Known As**: Fen **Joined**: 24 Jul 2010

Freezing hard drives does indeed work.

_________________
Discord: princess_marisa
Steam

EVA-251 · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:02 pm Post subject:

I read up on it too. From the looks of it it might keep the drive operational long enough for me to move irreplaceable files (mods, photos, academic work) over to a functioning drive, and I have the tools needed for such a transfer.

Also, any suggestions for 2.5 inch laptop drives? Right now I am leaning toward the 7200 RPM WD Scorpio Black 500GB [the dead one is a 5600 RPM Hitachi 500GB of unknown model]

_________________
YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead Developer Star Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007)

Cranium · Defense Minister **Joined**: 05 Dec 2009 **Location**: USA

Man, I hope your able to recover your assets. I havent really shown it, but I'm a fan of StarStrike.

_________________

The enemy shall be injected with toxic poison - Venom

EVA-251 · Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:08 am Post subject:

Went with a Western Digital Scorpio Black 7200 RPM 500GB drive. So far it seems amazing, especially compared to the Hitachi 5600 even in its prime. Very fast (duh), but also runs cooler and quieter. (also, this is not related to it, but IE9 seems like a half decent and fast browser o_O)

Will update with what happens with the freezing attempt later today.

UPDATE:
Partial success!
I was able to access the drive for 12 minutes, during which I was able to back up Star Strike's mod folder, part of RA1.5 (mostly the TS edition). Now to figure out how to take ownership of my Users folder.

_________________
YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead Developer Star Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007)

Yurisarmy · Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:04 pm Post subject:

Quote:

Personally I never backed stuff up because in the 12-13 years I've used computers, I've had exactly 0 hard-drive failures until now. Including one hard-drive that lasted atleast 8 years and would probably still be working had other computer components not rendered the machine as a whole inoperable.

My experience is just the opposite. My first and lower-capacity hard drives lasted much longer than my newer denser ones (I once got a new 1TB WD Passport USB external that died like a week after I got it). It seems to me that they are getting increasingly more fragile.

_________________

Now on ModDB!

FurryQueen · General **Also Known As**: Fen **Joined**: 24 Jul 2010

All hard drives will fail at some point. It's not a case of being fragile for newer models. There is a bit of luck involved with hard drive life spans and there are always lemons in every batch of drives. I've been fortunate like EVA has been. I've not had a drive die yet, and I've dropped a few onto solid concrete a couple times. My external, which I dropped last week, is still happily plugging along after four years of use.

_________________
Discord: princess_marisa
Steam

EVA-251 · Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:42 pm Post subject:

Fen is right. Such is the case with devices reliant on mechanical parts.

Also, I recovered all mod assets except RA1.5's voxel folder (which would be easily remedied by extracting the mixes I have)

I'll try to recover user data next.

_________________
YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead Developer Star Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007)