SneaksieDave on 2/9/2005 at 02:19
Hrm, I guess my sarcasm didn't get through. I don't take it lightly; quite the contrary. It took me this long to post because I was too pissed off about the whole thing to even say anything till now. I surely don't shrug off that much lost work easily.
And believe-you-me, I know all about backing up - I have stuff mirrored on all three of my systems, and was going through a regular CD burning cycle the day before the crash happened. Unfortunately, perhaps even foolishly, this was one of the few "important" (read: irreplacable) things that was not yet backed up. If this post gets some ambitious level designer to back up his/her level right now, then at least it serves some purpose.
I also didn't buy a WD replacement this time around (went with Seagate instead). Out of the 15 or so WD drives I've owned over the years, almost 50% of them have failed. Yes, failure is to be expected after a certain amount of time from any drive, but WD sure seems to fail a lot, and young.
...he says, as the operating system drive he's typing from resides on an 8-year old WD...
(no worry - OS images are easily replaced in minutes)
ascottk on 2/9/2005 at 02:29
Maxtrox HDs have treated me well. My Mac G3 B&W has two of those drives & my OS X installation has been transfered from one to the other a few times & they're still going strong after two years. My wintel has had several different operating systems on it (Linux, BeOS, Windows, etc.) & the drives haven't failed me yet. I had a Seagate a few years ago. I broke down soon after I bought it.
d3so on 2/9/2005 at 06:56
SneaksieDave, have you considered sending your non-working hard drive to a data recovery facility? I don't know how expensive that is but considering you lost 150+ hours of work I would definitely look into it. BTW Seagate HD's are known to be much more reliable than WD - so good choice.
Bardic on 2/9/2005 at 07:03
Stick it in the freezer, I always have the best time telling customers I have their harddrive in the freezer overnight.
But I guess it depends on how the drive actually crashed.
Freezer could work, or swapping boards from an identical drive, but if the actual internal mechanics have crashed or scratched the platters there won't be much hope.
Anything we can do to help.
ProjectX on 2/9/2005 at 07:36
an that sucks. I've never had a HD die on me *knocks on wood* but this is generally cos I update regularly, and this includes gtting a better hard drive frequently.
scumble on 2/9/2005 at 08:12
Reminds me that I haven't backed up work in a while. I was very lucky the last time I had an HD go that I'd backed up all the important stuff a couple of days before. Most of what I lost I didn't miss that much.
I suppose the only way is to have a strict backup regime...
SubJeff on 2/9/2005 at 09:20
For sure. I have 2 HDs, and one is just databack up. I should start using CDs too though. I'm going to back up my T3 maps now!
ProjectX on 2/9/2005 at 09:23
It's probably the wrong place but nobody seems to hav noticed te other thread.
I've finished the Novellist (well, ALPHA 1 anyway) and need someone to host a 255Kb file.
SneaksieDave on 2/9/2005 at 15:08
Quote Posted by d3so
have you considered sending your non-working hard drive to a data recovery facility?
Actually, I considered that exactly - even visited a website (the first google returned) that specializes in it, but you have to "call now for an estimate." That gives me the feeling this is not the kind of thing that home users do - it's probably priced for corporate funds. I didn't rule it out, but it's not likely. Hell, I considered taking it apart and seeing what I could figure out for myself, even. I mean, if it's lost, it's lost, so why not.
Freezer?? Hm. Need to read about that.
Quote Posted by ProjectX
this is generally cos I update regularly
Yeah I generally keep my old ones ready for use. Oddly enough though, I've had worse luck with new ones. This one was "only" four, unfortunately. I guess I should be happy it passed the warranty period.
Anyway, thanks for the support, and sorry; I wasn't trying to bog the thread down with this crap news. I just thought that since I did mention the FM several times on this forum, I should probably follow-up and say it's gone now.
I will say there is probably a 10% chance I may feel like restarting it (or maybe just start something else... with backups! - especially when T3Ed'ing starts getting more momentum). It's a bitch though, because this is the second time I was building this mission, the first time getting only about 10% into it with DromEd 2. This one had some neat stuff I was liking (for instance, a network of almost completely random patrol paths), and I can definitely say one thing - T3Ed can make some really good shit if you play with it for a while. Nice looking, nice sounding,
and nice playing. Sigh.
