I'm homicidal - all FS planes lost! [Archive]

Toastmaker

October 8th, 2009, 16:43

I had to take my computer in to the shop that built it because the boot process would not recognize the operating system (XP). Ok, so they said they would save my hard drives (three of them, "C", "E", and "F") and do a re-install.

They re-installed XP, I just brought the system back up and - - - -

MY "F" DRIVE IS MISSING !! It's not even there anymore - how can that be ?? It contained all my flight sims, hundreds of diagrams, documents AND. . . about 300 third-party aircraft for FS9 !!

Tomorrow morning, they are somehow going to find my "F" drive or there will be blood - seriously.

Trans_23

October 8th, 2009, 16:51

I can only imagine your anguish. Good luck on getting your stuff back. Do you still have the installers? There should be laws against this sort of thing.

Daveroo

October 8th, 2009, 17:03

oh my...id be beside myself....not good

N2056

October 8th, 2009, 17:21

In the immortal words of John "Bluto" Blutarski...
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily! :icon29:

Lionheart

October 8th, 2009, 17:23

Welcome to my world.

Try being a Dev and losing your computer or hard drive 3 times in one year...

Now I have 'internal' HD's that I use as backups, stacked, in cases, with a socket drive for internal drives outside of the computer, and a nice little stack of flash drives.

Take no chances.

Just remember though that most sites have your records and can get you your software back. Flight1 is best for this. Even PayLoadz, if you do not change your email address, lol... arrgh.

The good side, is that this is a new beginning, clean start.

Take a deep breath and pretend you got a new sim....

Bill

Moses03

October 8th, 2009, 17:25

I sure hope you can recover your files!

Toastmaker

October 8th, 2009, 17:33

In the immortal words of John "Bluto" Blutarski...
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily! :icon29:

This I'm thinking about. . .

IVANOW

October 8th, 2009, 18:10

3 seperate Hard Drives or 1 Hard Drive split into 3 Drives ?
If seperate , F Drive is not connected .
If 1 Hard Drive .
Click C Drive , Should be a file named system.sav .
Every file I thought I had lost were in this file .

MCDesigns

October 8th, 2009, 18:12

Opps, time for FSX now, LOL (kidding)

I had the same thing happen to me a few years back with CompUSA. Took my rig in for them to add some new hardware, was very explicit about disconnectioning my secondary drives, one of which had over 4000 songs on it. I get it back, start it up and the drive is clean, not a spec of data on it, they misread the order and ghosted over that drive. long story short, after breaking some items in their store and causing a huge scene, I was almost arrested., never been so angry.

FengZ

October 8th, 2009, 18:58

man, i hope they can find "F" drive :)

stuff like this can actually stop a game cold for me. I recently accidentally moved some files out of my Oblivion install, and so it stopped working. I spent about a month adding MODs and other stuff to it - making it a perfect game. I just didn't feel like re-doing it again....so....i uninstalled it. O well....

If i ever lost my FS9 install, i'll probably do the same. It took 2+ years to get it to where i like it....and i don't have the time nor energy to do it again :)

-feng

Kiwikat

October 8th, 2009, 19:16

Let em have it.

I'm sure the drive letter won't be the only "F" flying around.

I would absolutely demand money back and then some. If someone erased my FS drive, they wouldn't see the next day. :173go1:

Cactuskid

October 8th, 2009, 19:44

If your F drive is missing, in other words does not show up when you click "My Computer", it could be something as simple as they forgot to plug it back into the mobo, or they did not seat the connector all the way in. If that's the case, then plug it back in, and when you start the computer again all should be well. I hope that's all it is. My system is set up similar to yours: C is the OS and maintainance programs, E is data storage, and F is flightsim. Good luck! :wavey:

harleyman

October 8th, 2009, 19:49

Go to Control Panel...

Select Admin Tasks

Disk management

Look for the drive...They may have moved the sata connection and you need to initialize it again...

Or just plug it back in

Snuffy

October 9th, 2009, 03:22

Send Lawyers Guns and Money! :wiggle:

Sorry Toastie ... that's gotta be exasperating ...

Kofschip

October 9th, 2009, 07:01

Toast, First of all think of your own health, don't "blow a gasket." And with honey you can catch a lot more flies than with vinegar. Having said all this, I believe that everyone of us is willing to help you with supplying missing things that are not available anymore. I am for one. -- K. :kilroy:

Lionheart

October 9th, 2009, 08:24

If F drive was a seperate HD, then you probably do not have it plugged in right, or it is reading as a diff drive letter. Thats all.

If its in the HD, then it might have been overwritten. Just have to deal with that.

For those of you that have huge installations perfectly tuned to just how you like them, I MASSIVELY SUGGEST that today (not tomorrow) you go to a electronics store and get one of those external drives (even a small pocket drive, those little designer looking things that can fit in your pocket), and tonight, as you sleep, have those files being copied over to the backup HD unit.

DO THAT TODAY.....!

Why risk it..

An internal drive can cost as low as $50.00 USD. You can get them at many places. Here, Walmart even sells these little things. Then, just put it on a shelf and save it. Back up new things to it once in a while, or reload / resave FS to it so that you have it all updated often.

Do it...!

Bill

Toastmaker

October 9th, 2009, 09:00

Lionheart is quite right. Thanks for that suggestion and thanks all for the comments.

Now the "tech" that worked on it says that it was a partitioned drive and "some" files were corrupted with a virus. . . ??

So, does that mean the whole drive (or partition) had to be erased - I think not. . .

Also, is there not some form of data-recovery magic available out there ??

Snuffy

October 9th, 2009, 09:24

All the data is still there Toastie ... unless they did a low level format.

Otherwise all that happens with a format is that the file allocation tables (FAT) has the first letter of each entry of the drive erased and the drive then sees that space as empty.

AS Long as you don't overwrite that drive, your information should be easily recoverable. Do a search for File Allocation Table editing software and if you can recall the first letter in all the files you can recover the info.

Of course there is a disclaimer with this ... That's at least the way that it worked with DOS and all the early versions of Windows ... up to NT and beyond when you had a choice of using a FAT or a FAT32 or a NTFS.

Good Luck. :)

Toastmaker

October 9th, 2009, 09:34

Snuffy

October 9th, 2009, 09:49

Don't quote me on this as I'm going by memory of the last time I tried this ... on windows 95 ...

Ummm I don't think you can "format" a partitioned drive without wiping the other partition(s) as well.

that being the case, the partition is gone ... an so is any semblence of the information it contained I'm afraid.

Toastmaker

October 9th, 2009, 11:47

Please. . . . I beg someone to say it ain't so. . . . .

:pop4:

Henry

October 9th, 2009, 12:10

Please. . . . I beg someone to say it ain't so. . . . .

:pop4:
I wish i could
thats why i hate partitions
its the same hard drive
just divided
i always have another drive
as a back up
so if my operating system goes foobar
i got every thing on another drive
it would be hard to recover a partition
after a format and reinstall
H

NoNewMessages

October 9th, 2009, 12:22

A reformat of a partition only deals with that partition, not any other partition on a single hard drive. If they somehow (?) got in and deleted the partions to make a single partition, then you're out of luck. XP has built in tools to structure and work with partitions and it may be that the partition that contains Drive F: isn't mounted and *may* be recoverable. But I question the wisdom and competency of the tech that you're working with.

Bjoern

October 9th, 2009, 12:36

Tomorrow morning, they are somehow going to find my "F" drive or there will be blood - seriously.

If they deleted the partition while reinstalling XP you're out of luck.

Please don't forget to call an ambulance beforehand to give that computer guy a fair chance And don't shove any Ram modules down any orafices. They might break and leave some nasty splinters behind.

Try being a Dev and losing your computer or hard drive 3 times in one year...

I haven't had a single HDD failure in six or seven years. How much bad luck do you need to have to have one within every four months? :isadizzy:

Toastmaker

October 9th, 2009, 12:50

It now appears that the drive partition was removed and then reformatted for the reinstall of XP-

No recourse.

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions, though.

Rezabrya

October 9th, 2009, 14:25

ToastMaker, I beg that you don't rip my head off byt I'm going to put my two cents in. You said that you couldn't boot into your OS. Isn't it better to have an OS than a full FS9 with no OS to play on? I understand that it's tough to think of getting it all back but if it had to be done to get your OS reinstalled, wasn't worth it? I wish you luck in the recovery process.

Toastmaker

October 9th, 2009, 15:35

Well, as you have wisely pointed out - "it can always be worse" but I didn't just lose FS planes, scenery, AI accessories, diagrams, documents and other downloads - I lost a year's worth of work on a short-story manuscript that was the basis of a full novel via Bantam Books.

In a number of personal ways (not described here because not FS related), it is a disaster of considerable proportions caused by an incompetent technician. The "C" drive partition did not have to be removed and the entire drive did not have to be overwritten. That's my point, that this was preventable had the tech been competent.

My failure here is not to have saved important stuff onto a separate external HD. I will not repeat this error!

Panther_99FS

October 9th, 2009, 16:47

"Ouch!" Toast....:frown:

Toastmaker

October 9th, 2009, 17:48

Oh yeah. . .

Chacha

October 9th, 2009, 17:51

My failure here is not to have saved important stuff onto a separate external HD. I will not repeat this error!

We learn by our mistakes.... (Big mistakes):isadizzy:

Cratermaker

October 9th, 2009, 18:58

My failure here is not to have saved important stuff onto a separate external HD. I will not repeat this error!
Sorry to hear this.

I would take it even one step further. For things like manuscripts, thesis, important digital photos, code, 3D models or anything that would be difficult to replicate or replace without a lot of time and effort, I would also have an off site copy at a trusted friend, relative, or bank deposit box. A backup drive is great insurance against mechanical failure, but there is also fire, flood, and other natural disasters as well as theft to worry about.

I'm not saying be paranoid about this and do it constantly, but never is probably not a good idea either.

Gdavis101

October 9th, 2009, 19:34

I do backups and re-installs every day with computers that are virus ridden.. I think someone forgot to back up that part of the drive. You can back up an entire drive or multiple drives in the form of an image so when it is time to re install Windows you can format the original drive and put the pre-existing files, like docs, pics or FS Stuff from the image back on the newly formatted drive and its fresh partitions. Having a virus program running during the file copy usually prevents reinfection and more than likely it was Windows that was infected to begin with and not your FS stuff. I keep all of my FS Stuff on a separate drive in my PC, no partitions, and I also store it as a backup on an external one.

OBIO

October 9th, 2009, 22:34

Toaster

I feel for ya man. Been through that sort of thing several times....HD crashes, FAT corruption, luckily only once did I get hit by a virus..that I know of. It totally sucks loosing sim stuff, especially stuff that you have tweaked to your personal taste....but loosing a manuscript...that is a big time blow.

This thread has reminded me that I need to back up all my new sim installs...haven't backed them up since I set them up a couple weeks ago. Time to plug in the 120 gig external and do a major session of file protection tonight.

OBIO

gigabyte

October 10th, 2009, 02:55

Ok, now he tells me that there was a trojan/worm that was replicating itself so he had to reformat the drive to re-install XP. This was my "C" drive partitioned to include "F" drive (where everything of value was).

I'm beginning to exceed the scope of my computer knowledge base, so. . . any opinions as to whether it is recoverable or not ??

Toastmaker, the short answer is - not recoverable (most likely not), with an XP partitioned drive the chances of recovery are slim. It is possible with the proper tools to recover data from formatted drives (I have done it many times) but it is very time consuming and you really have to know what you are doing. The main reason I say Not recoverable is, if in fact the drive is / was infected with a Trojen Virus, you would very likely end up releasing it back into the open which would not be a good thing.

I hate to say it, but you are much better off forgetting about the stuff you lost, and concentrate on starting fresh. My heart goes out to you this kind of thing really sucks. Please let me know if I can help.

cheezyflier

October 10th, 2009, 04:05

sorry to hear about what happened to you, but it is the exact reason i do my level best to never let anyone else work on my computer. alot of those folks are lazy and there answer to everything is to format and re-install.

stansdds

October 10th, 2009, 06:19

This is why I back up on a separate physical drive, not a partition. I learned it the hard way. Next time I build a computer I will probably use a small drive for the operating system, a larger drive for games and applications and either a third internal drive or an external drive for back up.

hairyspin

October 10th, 2009, 06:54

It sounds like your computer tecchie has lost a customer. Plus a few others you might tell your tale to. Has he any business sense?

Rezabrya

October 10th, 2009, 11:05

I have a whole documents hdd which includes my documents, all kinds of installers and backups. I backup it up once a month on a different hdd. I would definitely do what Bill said and go buy yourself a external hdd for backing up that stuff.

n4gix

October 10th, 2009, 11:22

And don't shove any Ram modules down any orafices. They might break and leave some nasty splinters behind.

Ha! I was just reading a story last night in which two young girls were accosted by two of the baron's guards who sought to rape them...

One of the girls used some magic powder to cause one of the guards to collapse, and the other used a yard-long axe-handle to clobber the other...

Their "revenge" was sweet... One of the girls picked up a couple of pine cones from the blacksmith's tinder box and commented...

'You see how all the leaves on the pinecones run one way?' :icon_lol:

'They'll be sittin' down careful for months, they will - and squatting cautious-like at the jakes.' :ernae:

Toastmaker

October 10th, 2009, 11:38

Well, hope springs eternal ! I've got it with a tech at the forensic computer lab at the FLETC here about 10 miles from my house (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center). Referred to me by a friend -

He says that it is entirely possible to retrieve files even if the drive has been overwritten. I may get back 50 to 70% of my stuff ! File names will be gone and each file will have to be opened and re-named but that's just expending time !

It's good to have capable friends. . . I should know something by tomorrow.

cheezyflier

October 10th, 2009, 11:45

n4gix, dude, i dunno what kinda books you read, but that one sounds a little...uhmmmm non typical :icon_lol:

Bjoern

October 10th, 2009, 14:38

Their "revenge" was sweet... One of the girls picked up a couple of pine cones from the blacksmith's tinder box and commented...

'You see how all the leaves on the pinecones run one way?' :icon_lol:

'They'll be sittin' down careful for months, they will - and squatting cautious-like at the jakes.' :ernae:

Urgh! Nasty... :isadizzy:

TeaSea

October 10th, 2009, 16:33

Toast,

I've great empathy for you since at this time my system has just informed me that my "K" drive, an external drive I back up to, is no longer readable. (Okay, so it's my backup, and maybe the impact isn't that great -- haven't quite figured it out yet).

My daughter also just informed me that she just dropped her laptop down the stairs, and of course her whole college world is on that system. Won't this be fun?

However, at the risk of lecturing and offending folks, yourself included, I need to point out that whenever you bring a system into someone to fix, you need to understand what you're asking them to do. The bottom line is your guys FIXED your system. That was their mandate.

Your loss of data is not necessarily their concern unless you made it their priority. That is an object lesson for us all.

Most of us are now in the position where the data on our systems is more valuable than the systems themselves. Everyone reading this needs to think that through, because not too long ago that would not have been the case. This idea surely needs to be expressed whenever dealing with a 3rd partly because they are going to assume that the system itself is the priority. Why did you bring it to them after all? I run a pretty expensive system, but would sacrifice it in a heartbeat to maintain the data moving across it. I suspect that most of the popular support folks do not have that kind of thing written into their contracts. Note to everyone, make this clear when you take your system in! I've no doubt that Toast did this, which is why he's so irritated.

I have some experience with it dealing with such occurances every day. I run a fairly large DOD network and this is a common occurrence. Unlike you however, my guys have the advantage of mulitple network drives where all their data can be stored, is backed up locally, and backed up off site at a COOP location out of state....yet they still persist in keeping their most beloved data on the local hard drive...the one most likely to fail. When my folks fix these drives....they do not address the data. They fix the systems. That is their job.

I wish you well and certainly hope your buddy at the FLETC can assist. I've also had this occur to me so I know the pain (as I expect most of us do).

Toastmaker

October 10th, 2009, 17:08

Oh, I understand and agree with your point. In this case, I was very clear about the number of drives and their importance when I explained what the original problem was. The shop owner, who built this system to my specs specifically for simulations and extra storage, was well aware of the data value to me and was present when I dropped it off.

While they did what I asked of them (re-install XP), an incompetent technician failed to protect the drive for no good procedural reason, prior to overwriting the drive. This is the proximal cause of the loss of the data and independant of the original request for service.

It's as if you went in for an operation on your spleen and while there, the doctor removes your left leg because you had a boil on your foot !!

As I mentioned before - I will not live another day without an external drive for copies of all critical files -

TeaSea

October 11th, 2009, 04:55

cheezyflier

October 11th, 2009, 05:08

For what it's worth Toast, I think my external back-up drive is "toast". (Sorry, couldn't resist)

I am giving online back up serious consideration. Perhaps some of the other forum members have some experience with this?

often times when an external drive goes bad, it's the "external" part of the drive. if it stops working you can usually bust the case open, remove the actual hard drive, and install it as an internal storage drive and it will work just fine. even if you don't have the room for it, you could still do it temporarily in order to copy the files to something/somewhere else.

n4gix

October 11th, 2009, 12:57

n4gix, dude, i dunno what kinda books you read, but that one sounds a little...uhmmmm non typical :icon_lol:

That specific quote was from "Legends of the Riftwar, Book III: Jimmy the Hand" by New York Times Bestselling Author Raymond E. Feist.

It is a small part of a huge series based around the fictional world of Midkemia.

http://www.midkemia.com/

Chacha

October 11th, 2009, 17:30

Toastmaker

October 12th, 2009, 14:24

Well, here's what happened; he recovered about 60% of the FILES from the drive but they are not recoverable intact within their FOLDERS. . .

Yes, that's right . . . I've got thousands of recovered files randomly listed without file names (only random numbers) and it will be impossible to reconstruct aircraft folders in order to reinstall in FS9's Aircraft directory !

As I open each file, many are damaged or corrupted. Some are intact but it looks like I'm just going to have to start over on this manuscript (if I can generate the will to do so) and start downloading anew the planes I flew frequently in FS9 -

*sigh*

Chacha - what you saw on CSI is a fraction of what is really capable!

Thanks for all the concern and suggestions - You're a remarkably kind and caring group of people.

Lionheart

October 12th, 2009, 14:56

Sorry about that Toast. Sounds like what happened to one of my drives.. I cried.. it was a dark day..

Apple 'Me' has online file storage. They 'suggest' it so you can retrieve files when ever you need them. Say you are at a convention in a far away country and your laptop HD goes out. Get a new one, install, set it up, download your important files, done..

Your files, waiting, online..

On HD scrubbing or cleaning, the military have 'standard' cleaning procedures programs that do this. They write 1's and 0's to the drive, over and over, I think six or 8 times. This insures you have 'nothing' on the HD. Several software manufacturers make software that have 'Air Force' level cleaners, etc. (There are many).

Bill

TeaSea

October 12th, 2009, 15:21

often times when an external drive goes bad, it's the "external" part of the drive. if it stops working you can usually bust the case open, remove the actual hard drive, and install it as an internal storage drive and it will work just fine. even if you don't have the room for it, you could still do it temporarily in order to copy the files to something/somewhere else.

I'm going to take a look at that cheezy....at this point, I don't think I've lost anything since it was a backup after all, but still , it's the principle of the thing.

Kofschip

October 12th, 2009, 16:27

Poor Toast, I am sorry that this happened to you. My external drive (E: = 2nd backup) just failed. After I have replaced that one, I will copy everything from my internal backup, the D: drive, to the new E: drive. After having gone through a lot of misery similar to yours about two years ago I decided to run a primary and a secondary backup. Something for you to consider.

cheezyflier

October 12th, 2009, 18:34

I'm going to take a look at that cheezy....at this point, I don't think I've lost anything since it was a backup after all, but still , it's the principle of the thing.

my storage drive began life as an external drive. i just moved the jumper on the "C" drive, and then the jumper on the newly internal "E" drive, mounted it in the bay where they extra disc drive would go, and hooked up a new ribbon. it was that easy.

Toastmaker

October 13th, 2009, 11:21

You're dead right, Kofschip - I'm going to be a backup fool, one internal and one external.

And if I start anew on the writing - I'm going to print the damn thing as I go, regardless of how many progress edits I do. I don't feel that I'm going to have the inertia for that, though. Maybe next year -

:kilroy:

Kofschip

October 14th, 2009, 04:48

Toast, you need to start writing again, while your memory (if you have one :bump:) is till fresh. You owe it to us to publish your efforts.:ernae:

Sascha66

October 14th, 2009, 05:02

Smashing Time

October 14th, 2009, 05:21

Back up to DVD's once a month, in-between put on flash drives.
:kilroy:

TeaSea

October 18th, 2009, 06:26

Well, it took the cost of a retrieval program but I got all my data off my back up, which was good since there was stuff there I had forgotten about.

I think this was a self inflicted wound....I place the drive in an area that did not get adequate ventilation, and I think it overheated. When it gets real super hot to the touch it's probably not a good sign.

The reason I'm updating this is because I found myself walking down the path I myself had cautioned against (say it isn't so!)...."oh, I'll just reformat this drive and get it up and running again...."

Nope, don't think so. I'm getting new drive. They're super cheap for the amount of storage --- the same cost as the recovery program.