I'm wiped out

[robj250]

Was working on the last part of Mission 15 for U-107 and the computer froze as I was entering the Cuban Islands. I tried a restart but it would not work; file missing. No metter what I tried, my computer would not start. I took it into town to the technician. He had it for two days and could not get "on" my hard drive so he ran a diagnostics on it and found that it had a bad sector. So all is lost! My only hope of getting everything back which is on that hard drive was to send it to Toronto to the experts to see if they could retrieve anything. Now I'm kicking myself in the butt for not backing up that hard drive.:damn: Everything on that drive relates to my making of my movies, my music, my ancestry - everything, my whole life is down the tube if they cannot retrieve the data that I require. :help:

Rob (crying and sinking fast)

[GoldenRivet]

damn brother thats terrible.

:nope:

[mengle]

I know the feeling :cry:

[Contact]

Pitty to hear it, should be total disaster for ya :nope:

Just curious what brand HDD was that ? and how long you have been using it ?

[Gezoes]

Ouch, I know how that feels too...

[nirwana]

There might be a way to retrieve everything but the stuff of the bad sector and the personal folders. Add a new HD to ure puter, install ure OS on it to boot from it and u should be able to read the old HD. U might be even able to repair the bad sector include the bits on it then.

I could save a crashed system hd by doing this and using paragon partition manager to repair it by creating a resue cd and boot from it.

[robj250]

Pitty to hear it, should be total disaster for ya :nope:

Just curious what brand HDD was that ? and how long you have been using it ?

It was a Maxtar and I have been using it since I started making movies.

[robj250]

There might be a way to retrieve everything but the stuff of the bad sector and the personal folders. Add a new HD to ure puter, install ure OS on it to boot from it and u should be able to read the old HD. U might be even able to repair the bad sector include the bits on it then.

I could save a crashed system hd by doing this and using paragon partition manager to repair it by creating a resue cd and boot from it.

Well, if these "experts" in Toronto can't retrieve the files I desperately need from it, I'll get them to send it back, and then I'll ask your advice on how to do what you suggest. The technician here in Port Hardy has been in business for 20 years and just retired, so he has nothing now that he can use to help and I don't know where he is. The only other technician we have here is a "hit and miss" technician. He likes to try a lot of things.:hmm: And I'm no computer expert. I have a new hard drive now and I just found "Antivirus2008" on it. Damn. Is anything else going to happen. I went into the registry and removed any reference to antivirus2008 and 2009.

Will advise what happens.

Rob

[conus00]

Sorry to hear that, mate.
I have been in exactly same boat as you are about half year ago. My archive drive failed and I have lost about five years worth of priceless data. As of today I can't find any company which is able to retrieve the information. My problem is a mechanical failure: The drive will start spinning, then click a few times and that's it... :damn:

I am still feeling the impact of the lost information and I would appreciate if you keep me posted on the "Toronto experts". If they can help you they might be able to help me as well....
Good luck!

[nirwana]

Would it be an ancient drive like a 32MB RLL i would open its case. About 20 years ago i could fix it by giving its jammed magnetic discs a slight manual push with my thumb another time blowing some dust from the upper disc. If it works with todays drives i have my doubts.

[robj250]

Would it be an ancient drive like a 32MB RLL i would open its case. About 20 years ago i could fix it by giving its jammed magnetic discs a slight manual push with my thumb another time blowing some dust from the upper disc. If it works with todays drives i have my doubts.

Sorry, I don't know. But the technician, before he retired, blew all the dust out of everything.

[nirwana]

Ermmm that was a joke.....:huh: dont do it with todays drives

[BasilY]

Happen to me once, you just have to make sure your saved games are well kept and re-installed the whole game+GWX. Anyway, never found out what happen.:down:

I have a pretty new Dell notebook, but it have other problems...

[robj250]

Well I guess it's about time I quit thinking if I'm every going to get my files retrieved off that hard drive I sent to Toronto and get on with my life. It was just such a disaster though and it really upset me and set me back on my heals.

I am going to install SH3 today, but I don't have ANY of the downloads of mods and I simply can't remember what mods I used for U-107 in SH3. I have no idea where to get 1.4b or any of the mods.

I checked my other hard drive which I used for backing up my saved games but it wasn't quit up-to-date on my last mission, so I'm a bit lucky there and I found the patch TGW on a vanilla SH3 on the same hard drive, so I'm lucky there.

I don't know where to get the intelligence MOD as I forget what it was called. I think I was using SHCommander 2.something; not his latest one, so I have to try to find where that is so I can download it.

I have to find out where I got all the mods from. I'm terrible with names but I think there was a supply of mods from a female member, and some from another dated folder and some sound files, and a whole page of downloads from subsim I think, and I forget where I got my skins (winter ones and summer ones for a VIIB and IXB) from and the weedy-like appearrance to the water.

I have a GeForce 6600 graphics card and a Seanix 17 inch flat screen and I have to figure out how to lighten my nights a bit as it's pretty dark on my flat screen and I cannot see my sub or anything when the game is in the middle of the night. The buttons at the bottom have been lightened up as far as I can go, but it's still not enough.

Any help in finding all this stuff will be greatly appreciated.

Rob

[Jimbuna]

I'm gutted for you Rob....was once bitten in a similar fashion by a bloody pc and have always kept multiple drives since.

Don't you go worrying yourself, I'm sure the collective of members on the forum will be able to furnish you with everything you've lost.

Make a list and post it here my friend. http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[Brag]

Sorry to hear Rob. I know how it feels. :dead:

[nikbear]

Really know how you feel,same thing happened,was totally gutted:nope:sorry for your predicement.

[jpm1]

it happened to me once it wasn't Silent hunter but another game i watercooled my graphic card and i didn't take care i poured some water drops on the hard drive it didn't liked it much , i lost dozen of missions which took me days not to says weeks to make . since this day i always have two hard drives especially kept for the backup on top of the system drive i purchased a synchronisation program i synchronise folders it takes me few minutes (no more than 15 min for my 70Go FS9 folder)

[nirwana]

If u got enuff cash create a mini raid with 2 physicly identical drives configured as mirrors which permanenlty takes care that the datas on both will be identical at any given time without user intervention.

For the lighten up of ure screen u can increase the gamma with the software which comes with the NVIDIA driver (accessible via desktop/right mouseclick). Its in video/tv -> video colorsettings (last menu/1st submenue). Switch it to NVIDIA settings, adjust the gamma and save it.

[robj250]

If u got enuff cash create a mini raid with 2 physicly identical drives configured as mirrors which permanenlty takes care that the datas on both will be identical at any given time without user intervention.

For the lighten up of ure screen u can increase the gamma with the software which comes with the NVIDIA driver (accessible via desktop/right mouseclick). Its in video/tv -> video colorsettings (last menu/1st submenue). Switch it to NVIDIA settings, adjust the gamma and save it.

Thanks nirwana - I will try that adjustment.

Rob

[Sailor Steve]

Rob, I can't help with remembering what mods you had installed, but as far as getting them goes I'm sure that between us we have pretty much everything that's been done since the game came out; so getting you set up again should be no problem.

I don't make videos, so a lot of storage isn't necessary for me. I keep all my work stored on a 4-gig flash drive and a Data folder with my current setup and a list on another one. In your case I would recommend a good external storage drive for the future; not that it helps now.

Anyway, if you need anything just holler.

[robj250]

Rob, I can't help with remembering what mods you had installed, but as far as getting them goes I'm sure that between us we have pretty much everything that's been done since the game came out; so getting you set up again should be no problem.

I don't make videos, so a lot of storage isn't necessary for me. I keep all my work stored on a 4-gig flash drive and a Data folder with my current setup and a list on another one. In your case I would recommend a good external storage drive for the future; not that it helps now.

Anyway, if you need anything just holler.

Hi Steve:

What I need first is the update 1.4b I think it was.

On my extra hard drive that I use for backups, I noticed I had a backup of some mods; one of them called MVP-1.0 and another called JSGME. Now I know I need to install JSGME but what about the MVP-1.0. I seem to remember a long time ago when I first started Silent Hunter there was a mod that I think was MVP which put an additional folder on the hard drive called Silent Hunter (outside the program files folder) which contained I believe information about types of merchants. Do I need to install that?

I know I wrote down somewhere all the mods I installed in SH3, I just have to find the list. Hope it was not on the damaged hard drive.

Rob

[robj250]

Okay, I found the patch 1.4b at Ubisoft and have downloaded it.

The next problem is, I have multiplule installs: Ubisoft-U55, Ubisoft-TGW and Ubisoft GWX (not ready yet). The Ubisoft-TGW works fine, but I cannot remember how I installed the patch. Do I rename Ubisoft-U55 back to Ubisoft and then run the patch from the download folder, or do I copy the patch into Ubisoft-U55 and run it?

Rob

[jpm1]

If u got enuff cash create a mini raid with 2 physicly identical drives configured as mirrors which permanenlty takes care that the datas on both will be identical at any given time without user intervention.

For the lighten up of ure screen u can increase the gamma with the software which comes with the NVIDIA driver (accessible via desktop/right mouseclick). Its in video/tv -> video colorsettings (last menu/1st submenue). Switch it to NVIDIA settings, adjust the gamma and save it.

i've heard that the RAID with a low drives number can be dangerous if one of the drives slips you loose all the data . personnally i use the good old IDE

[nirwana]

i've heard that the RAID with a low drives number can be dangerous if one of the drives slips you loose all the data . personnally i use the good old IDE

Afaik that happens with software raids (happened to my old powercomputing mac 10 years ago). Using raid controllers since then i never had any issues.

[robj250]

I gone again. I'm writing this message from a spare computer which is a Vista. My XP has gone and crashed again; "read error" . When I got up at 9 I turned it on and started SpyBot to look for any unwanted items and went back to bed as I wasn't feeling well. I got up at noon and found that the computer had froze and Spybot had not finished. I tried the CTL ALT DEL to get the program to end but I could not do it. I turned my computor off and then back up again and I got some garbage on the screen and the computer would not start. I started it again and pressed DEL to get to the BIOS and saw that the drive name was all gibberish. And the only good technician in Port Hardy has retired and is now down Island. I must have picked up a virus. So, I have a hard drive in Toronto with all my prescious data on it and a darn computer here that will not work.:damn:

And I had just finished putting all my programs back on it.

Damn. It's enough to drive a person to smoking again and getting drunk.

Rob

[nirwana]

Blame the cheap $1.50 powersupply made in china all out-of-the-box puters are equipped with.

[jpm1]

i've a tip for keeping its system healthy never install non-official Windows themes thus programs that integrate themselves in Windows shell . i've been doing this for several years now and i reinstall rarely 1 maximum 2 times in a year

[robj250]

Well, something STRANGE is certainly going on and I'm not wure what it is. Two hours after it crashed yesterday, I turned the computer on and, whala, it worked. So I Run CHKDSK /R, and after about 1 minute the computer froze again and I got gibberish as a drive when I tried to restart it. I waited another hour and turned it on and it worked, but went into trying to finish the "order" and after about a minute it froze again, so I shut it off and turned it back on and I got gibberish for a hard drive again and it would not work. I left it all night and this morning at 7 AM PT I turned it on and it worked fine for one minute and froze again. I wondered what the f.... was going on. I waited 10 minutes, and turned it on and it worked fine, I was able to backup one file on another drive and then it froze while trying to backup another file. I nscrewed the side and removed it completely exposing the "guts" of the machine and then turned it on. Everything was okay. I was able to backup all the files I wanted to onto the extra hard drive, run my virus scan on the main drive with no virus found. I am just now running the virus scan on the extra hard drive. It is now 12:35 PM PT and the computer has NOT froze, quit, did circles, etc. It is still running, HOORAY!! The scan of the E: drive has just finished finding nothing! I have no viruses on my computer. So, just taking the side off it made the difference, why?

Any computer experts out there can tell me why?

Rob

[bigboywooly]

I imagine its overheating
Taking the side off will increase the airflow

[Darksun]

Any computer experts out there can tell me why?

Rob

Overheating: I agree. Also, that drive is proably about to croak for good. Get another drive and back it all up.

Personally I like the USB drives for that. You can plug it in to any PC and keep backups of all of them. I also spread the really important files around to all the PC's and my usb "key chain" drives.

Good Luck.
-D

[robj250]

I imagine its overheating
Taking the side off will increase the airflow

Hi bigboywooly:

You're absolutely correct. I took the side off and the compuuter has been running since 7 AM until 4 PM.

Rob

[robj250]

Any computer experts out there can tell me why?

Rob

Overheating: I agree. Also, that drive is proably about to croak for good. Get another drive and back it all up.

Personally I like the USB drives for that. You can plug it in to any PC and keep backups of all of them. I also spread the really important files around to all the PC's and my usb "key chain" drives.

Good Luck.
-D

Hi Darksun:

Yes, it was the side of the computer. I took it off and the computer has been running from 7AM until 4 PM (which is now).

The hard drive is just a brand new hard drive purchased July 28th.

I don't understand how a UBS drive works. I have questions about that and my Silent Hunter Multi games.

I felt the video card and it was a little warm, so that is the problem. I might need to buy a new video card. I have a NVIDIA GeForce 6600 card.

Rob

[Darksun]

Check your fans. If any are not running or running noisy, replace them. Blow out all the dust. If you blew out a lot of dust, the computer may actually run cooler with the case back on.

External drives are great for backup, but not the best thing for running games actively off of.

If your drive is pretty new, it's probably going to last longer than anything else in the case.

It's still a good idea to make multiple backups of everything you care about. Skydrive and foldershare are good options for for distrubuting your backups. I also like the USB drive since it's fast to move from PC to PC. Skydrive can take a few hours to re-replicate all your files.

How warm is "A little warm?" Computer chips can run at 130 deg. F without much problem. If you have a remote thermometer, (the kind with the laser or LED dot for targeting) check out the main chip on the card after you run the game for an hour. If that's 140+ it's probably running too hot. Memory chips can be sensitive to case heat buildup. If the case get up around 120+ inside they sometimes start throwing errors.

If you have specific questions about external drives, I will do my best to answer. I can't tell you doodly squat about multi-player. My internet connection uses carrier pigeons for part of the link, so latency is a problem.

[robj250]

Check your fans. If any are not running or running noisy, replace them. Blow out all the dust. If you blew out a lot of dust, the computer may actually run cooler with the case back on.

External drives are great for backup, but not the best thing for running games actively off of.

If your drive is pretty new, it's probably going to last longer than anything else in the case.

It's still a good idea to make multiple backups of everything you care about. Skydrive and foldershare are good options for for distrubuting your backups. I also like the USB drive since it's fast to move from PC to PC. Skydrive can take a few hours to re-replicate all your files.

How warm is "A little warm?" Computer chips can run at 130 deg. F without much problem. If you have a remote thermometer, (the kind with the laser or LED dot for targeting) check out the main chip on the card after you run the game for an hour. If that's 140+ it's probably running too hot. Memory chips can be sensitive to case heat buildup. If the case get up around 120+ inside they sometimes start throwing errors.

If you have specific questions about external drives, I will do my best to answer. I can't tell you doodly squat about multi-player. My internet connection uses carrier pigeons for part of the link, so latency is a problem.

I think the problem is with the graphics card, which is pretty old. So, I've ordered a new one. Sure hope that solves the problem.

[jpm1]

you can see your system temps with Everest program , for the GC if it's an ATI you can use ATI tray tool if it's a Nvidia don't know never had any Nvidia of my entire life . ah yes once i had one two weeks http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/Emoticons/rire2.gif

[robj250]

you can see your system temps with Everest program , for the GC if it's an ATI you can use ATI tray tool if it's a Nvidia don't know never had any Nvidia of my entire life . ah yes once i had one two weeks http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/Emoticons/rire2.gif

Well, I decided to have the "new" computer store in town to order me the best video card that will work in my motherboard. They phoned me this morning and said they are getting me a 7300 GT NVIDIA card. Hope it's a good card. It will be installed tomorrow.

Rob

[Jimbuna]

you can see your system temps with Everest program , for the GC if it's an ATI you can use ATI tray tool if it's a Nvidia don't know never had any Nvidia of my entire life . ah yes once i had one two weeks http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/Emoticons/rire2.gif

Well, I decided to have the "new" computer store in town to order me the best video card that will work in my motherboard. They phoned me this morning and said they are getting me a 7300 GT NVIDIA card. Hope it's a good card. It will be installed tomorrow.

Rob

The 7300 should work fine Rob :up:

[robj250]

you can see your system temps with Everest program , for the GC if it's an ATI you can use ATI tray tool if it's a Nvidia don't know never had any Nvidia of my entire life . ah yes once i had one two weeks http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/jpm1/Emoticons/rire2.gif

Well, I decided to have the "new" computer store in town to order me the best video card that will work in my motherboard. They phoned me this morning and said they are getting me a 7300 GT NVIDIA card. Hope it's a good card. It will be installed tomorrow.

Rob

The 7300 should work fine Rob :up:

I hope it's just the video card and not the motherboard :cry:

[nirwana]

;) Thats how and why i built first time a puter out of seperate purchased parts. Couldnt get a fix on the prob until i replaced everything but case, harddrive and fans. Was a great learning experience though it drained my wallet.

[robj250]

;) Thats how and why i built first time a puter out of seperate purchased parts. Couldnt get a fix on the prob until i replaced everything but case, harddrive and fans. Was a great learning experience though it drained my wallet.

I can relate to that. However, I have NO wallet left to drain :cry:

The video card did not come in today. So hopefully it will arrive tomorrow and hopefully, those Toronto experts are able to retrieve everything off that hard drive as I need everything on it really bad.

Rob

[rik007]

I hope the card will solve the problem and that not another component is broken e.g. the mainboard. Also scan for adware and malware. Free scanners available for that purpose. I had freezing problems which I considered hardware related (old disk) but they disappeared after the malware had been destroyed.

[robj250]

I hope the card will solve the problem and that not another component is broken e.g. the mainboard. Also scan for adware and malware. Free scanners available for that purpose. I had freezing problems which I considered hardware related (old disk) but they disappeared after the malware had been destroyed.

I use SpyBot and SpywareBlaster. I was told by a friend that he ws told to use BitDefender but my technician he knew nothing about that one, but used only SpyBot. I just ran it and there was nothing there and my McAfee scan today found nothing. So, I guess I'm okay :rock:

Rob

[Madox58]

What browseing habits you have will determine what software you need.

I use nothing but AVG freeware version, Microsofts Malware thingy,
and commend sense.
After 30 + years on the Net?
Works for me.

[robj250]

I just heard from the company in Toronto and was informed that they can retrieve 15,000+ files from that hard drive that crashed because of the bad sector.

They sent me a list of all the files they can retrieve and everything I needed BADLY can be retrieved :D .

So needless to say I am very, very happy. But it will take another two weeks before I will receive a new hard drive with all those files on it so I can hook it into my computer and copy the files I want from it. :rock:

I was sure sweating there for a while.

Rob

[Darksun]

I just heard from the company in Toronto and was informed that they can retrieve 15,000+ files from that hard drive that crashed because of the bad sector.

They sent me a list of all the files they can retrieve and everything I needed BADLY can be retrieved :D .

So needless to say I am very, very happy. But it will take another two weeks before I will receive a new hard drive with all those files on it so I can hook it into my computer and copy the files I want from it. :rock:

I was sure sweating there for a while.

Rob

After this huge discussion, I accidently deleted all my saves for my patrol that made it to early 1943 with over 500K tons in my IXB.

:doh:

http://darksun.lunarpages.com/images/loose%20nut.png

[Jimbuna]

I just heard from the company in Toronto and was informed that they can retrieve 15,000+ files from that hard drive that crashed because of the bad sector.

They sent me a list of all the files they can retrieve and everything I needed BADLY can be retrieved :D .

So needless to say I am very, very happy. But it will take another two weeks before I will receive a new hard drive with all those files on it so I can hook it into my computer and copy the files I want from it. :rock:

I was sure sweating there for a while.

Rob

Very pleased to hear this Rob :up:

[HunterICX]

I just heard from the company in Toronto and was informed that they can retrieve 15,000+ files from that hard drive that crashed because of the bad sector.

They sent me a list of all the files they can retrieve and everything I needed BADLY can be retrieved :D .

So needless to say I am very, very happy. But it will take another two weeks before I will receive a new hard drive with all those files on it so I can hook it into my computer and copy the files I want from it. :rock:

I was sure sweating there for a while.

Rob

Glad to hear that data has been recovered and lets hope the damage is small

HunterICX

[nirwana]

Im surprised that only 1 bad sector caused the fatal failure of the complete HD. The "sophisticated" :nope: MS filesystem suppose to prevent that.

[jpm1]

i always have a second computer with the same socket of my main PC with low end components so that if there's a problem i can't locate it myself

[robj250]

Im surprised that only 1 bad sector caused the fatal failure of the complete HD. The "sophisticated" :nope: MS filesystem suppose to prevent that.

So am I. It must have been in the boot system.

I got the USB storage disk the other day (total cost $1,400) and copied everything onto my hard drive. I was even able to obtain my SH3. That's great, because I had no clue as to what mods I put into it. So I just copied it to Program Files and I copied my saved career. I tested it out and it started right where my IXB was when the hard drive crashed, so needless to say, I am trying to get the last part of my mission finished. I was heading to the Port of Spain (Equador) and ran into a mess of warships and me with only 3 torpedoes. I sunk one and got the heck out of there. :D

Rob

[Sailor Steve]

Well congratulations. I'm glad it worked out.

[Jimbuna]

Great news Rob :rock:

It would appear I missed you over on the GWX TS server the other day :-?