I'm livid and depressed

**Magnatude** · 13 February 2010, 03:24 AM

ok, IF you have had those programs stored on a drive that was recently wiped... go get "Restorer 2000".

I almost lost a horde of 3D models I created in truespace to a corrupted and erased/reformatted HD. I got 99% of my files back.

I think there is a time limited demo, try that on any HD that could have had those backups on... even if it has been partially rewritten over.

I hope that helps.
~~Richard~~

**wizard509** · 13 February 2010, 03:37 AM

Keep a stiff upper lip Nancy, it may turn up yet. Sometimes I put things of value in places that I think it will be easy to find again only to discover that it was extremely difficult to find. Other times I just lay it down somewhere with actually thinking about it. That is extremely hard to find also. So, it seems like that something that valuable to you, you probably put it somewhere you thought it would be where you would look when you wanted it again.

**charissepaula** · 13 February 2010, 09:24 AM

I too had misplaced a pocket drive (refuse to use the term lost). I have half a shelf in my office book case with a stack of drives. I searched the stack... many times... than searched all the usual and unusual places... nothing

Remember the stack is in a bookcase? Several months later I was researching a project and was pulling books off the shelves.... there it was!!! It was behind a book on that shelf!! How did it get there? I can only assume, due to its odd shape, I moved some items on the shelf and didn't notice it slide off the stack... put books back on the shelf and the drive was hidden from view

Don't give up....it will show up when you least expect it!

**pauland** · 13 February 2010, 09:41 AM

Bad situation indeed and I think just about everyone goes there sometime. There's going to be a problem for future generations - we no longer print photographs (and if we do they probably wont last as well as real photographic prints).

Think how much this stuff is worth to you, then get TWO drives. Periodically copy over one to the other. Keep them in different places. That way there is no single point of failure.

Most of us just assume our discs will keep on working (even if they aren't lost), but one day they will fail and we'll lose our stuff.

I hope the drive turns up. I have my backup drive. Unfortunately I don't have the power connector.. ..but I have two other backups as well..

**ChrisBro** · 13 February 2010, 01:56 PM

Im sorry to hear of your problem, indeed it is not a nice situation to find yourself in I to lost a lot of valuable files about 2 years ago including all the photos of our first born from 7 years ago absolutely heartbreaking I know how you fell and it is not nice.

Chin up most things are replaceable so far as the things that aren't if your sure the drive is gone forever than move on dont dwell on it it will annoy you something rotten if you do believe me.

I am now paranoid about backing up to the extent of it becoming a bit of OCD lol I have 3 X 1TB Externals and once every week I make multiple copies of everything just wipe the whole hard drvie with a copy of my file partition where I store everything literally personal and business, I also then upload the entire partition to 1 of my servers so intheory have 4 backups updated weekly, its a pain in the a** especially the upload I let that happen overnight usually on a Saturday, seems a bit extreme and has turned into a bit of an obsession now but I am determined I will never feel the way you are right now ever again.

THe business stuff I could have handled but to lose such personal and memorable photos was heart breaking.

Smile you will start to fell better

**Burpee** · 13 February 2010, 02:52 PM

I didn't think it could get worse but it has. My F drive 'MyBook' is failing. I have the original 100 gigs of 3D content in my runtimes on it (the backup was the 'misplaced' G drive).

Yesterday I started gathering up all the remnants of images and files from my C drive and F drive and started making discs (I even found a large file of Vue files but not with the image I wanted). I got 3 done and then my burner kept saying there was an error writing. I went to the F drive and found that it kept locking up when I was copying files. It went into a scan mode and said the volume was dirty. (I got numb at this point). It scanned and said 'correcting error in indes $0 for file 25'. It took awhile and finally said 'deleting from index $0 of file 25, about 25 times. Then it continued the scan. I just turned on my computers again and wait to see what happens. It's not looking good.

ps-I've also looked behind my discs on the shelves for the G drive and in tiny places it couldn't possibly fit.

Anyway, here's goes...off to see if the F drive will let me copy the files quickly to the C drive so I can at least copy the image files. If it lasts long enough or doesn't lock up, perhaps I can get a new one today and copy over. Fingers crossed.

**Burpee** · 13 February 2010, 03:29 PM

Why would this happen to me back-to-back? I can't tell if it's my C drive and/or the F drive too. All I know is that even right clicking on a file causes a lockup in the F drive and my C drive is taking forever to move files and not finishing doing it. At least it isn't locking up like the Fdrive. I'm so scared. I am about to lose the last bits of files I found on my system because it won't copy or move them. sob

**AndFarr** · 13 February 2010, 03:49 PM

When I lose things in the house it is usually because I have too much messy chaos and disorder.
I'd recommend cleaning the house and hopefully it will show up. If it doesn't then at least you have a clean house, and the knowledge that it is NOT in the house.

As for the failing drive: I'd recommend downloading a trial version of the defragmenting program Diskeeper ( www.diskeeper.com ) and run it on your drive. That program has gotten me out of "The Woods" more than once!

- Andy

**handrawn** · 13 February 2010, 03:58 PM

Hi Nancy

my advice would be to stop right there - don't try to access the F: drive at all any more

shut down the computer and get it to a techie - the crucial thing here I think is to not cause any further damage

**Burpee** · 13 February 2010, 06:19 PM

I appreciate the sympathies and suggestions. The house is already clean as I'm a bit of a 'neat-nik'. I even checked behind the computers, where the wires all are. Not tangled up in any wires.

I managed to get everything onto an 8GB flash drive by deleting duplicates and what I'd already copied to the 3 discs. It copied very fast from my C drive and even the files from the F drive copied over nicely as long as I used Window's 'copy these files' function instead of drag and drop (which won't work at all).

I'm going to do a scan disk now, then defrag (both were done about a month ago) and then I'll run my anti-virus program (takes about 7 hours).

I have never been able to remove the F drive 'MyBook' from my cpu because I have shortcuts on my cpu for programs installed on the F drive. If I delete these shortcuts, should I be able to remove the F drive safely using the 'remove hardware safely' function?

I thought my F drive turned off when I turned off the computer but it was on earlier when I checked this morning. If it's always been on, then it's real age is 3 times as old as my computer. Poor thing is probably burning up.