Qhimm.com Forums

Miscellaneous Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: ficedula on 2001-10-12 00:43:00

Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: ficedula on 2001-10-12 00:43:00
...when a program spews random garbage onto your hard drive and corrupts the boot sector and FAT (file allocation tables) of your main data partition?

I've just spent the past three hours frantically trying to repair my data partition. That contains EVERY piece of work I've ever written, EVERY program I've coded, ALL my personal documents ... god. Just thinking I'd lost that was like a nightmare.

After trawling the net for far, far too long I finally came up with Norton diskedit (German version, but hey) which rescued me :wink: Why the %$^&* there aren't more programs that let you edit the boot sectors I don't know...

Oh, wait. I do know. It's because if you ever need to do that, you're fux0red.

Well, if I ever need to repair a boot sector from scratch, at least I know how now....

First thing tomorrow: Burn my WHOLE hard drive to a large stack of CD's. Thank goodness I bought that stack of 100 CDR's earlier this week...
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Sephiroth the Dragon on 2001-10-12 01:03:00
wow. thats scary.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: The SaiNt on 2001-10-12 01:32:00
That reminds me...I haven't backed up my system in a long time either.
If I lost even half the info on my disk, I'd be in big trouble.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Sukaeto on 2001-10-12 05:21:00
Yeah . . . that is some scary sh*t . . .

I'm gonna have to back my stuff up, now :grin:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: mirex on 2001-10-12 06:47:00
I have 2 pc's at home, small network, so Im backuping from one to other, so there is better chance of saving my work. :smile: But anyhow thanks for reminding, have to burn my data too.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: ficedula on 2001-10-12 12:05:00
HAHAHA! HA! HAHA! BWAHAHA!

Now comes the GOOD news ... I have ASDL! Whoo! Whoo! Wai Wai Wai Wai! Ph33r my downloading speeds!
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: The SaiNt on 2001-10-12 12:50:00
*is so jealous* :evil:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: dagsverre on 2001-10-12 13:05:00
My big adventure in this area happened about a year ago...

I also lost my boot sector and partition table. Scared the sh*t out of me, but it turned out it was only a quick round in linux fdisk to fix the problem (I took care of not rebooting after knowing I had screwed up so Linux had the partition tables in memory, otherwise things would have been slightly worse).

For this not to be yet another of my usual Windows-bashing messages, let me add that I destroyed the boot sector in the first place by hacking it trying to improve the boot loader. Linux users around the world: When using "dd" on the boot sector, never go for the hunch and write "512" as the number of the bytes to overwrite, then you take the partition table with you... the size of only the boot sector is 428 or something like that, look it up in LILO readme.

[edited] 15 2001-10-12 14:08
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Sir Canealot on 2001-10-12 15:44:00
Whew! Thank god the only thing I would be loseing is around 800 megs of pornography! Phew! Then again...all my writeing...poetry....Baldurs Gate 2 saves. Better back up soon! Heh.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-12 16:40:00
my hd is full of starcraft and warcraft editing tools that not even the creators have anymore =)
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Alhexx on 2001-10-12 18:47:00
mmm...ASDL...mmm...

 - Alhexx
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-12 19:03:00
mmmmmm is right. damn my 56k
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Sephiroth the Dragon on 2001-10-12 19:44:00
mmmmmm.  I was supposed to have cable now.  But they pushed it back to next year.  I cried meself to sleep lol
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: ficedula on 2001-10-12 19:56:00
WE were supposed to have cable. But NTL (the cable company) were utter b&$%$^%&$^)$^&%^&%*^&%*^'s and kept on changing their mind on whether we were in a digital cable area or not. In the end we weren't. So we did the only thing possible and got ADSL instead.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Jedimark on 2001-10-12 20:30:00
Hey NTL rule!!!
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: ficedula on 2001-10-12 20:40:00
Well, not in my street, they don't.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-12 21:44:00
i live in the only zip code area in the city that doesnt have cable or dsl
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Sephiroth 3D on 2001-10-13 09:02:00
Darkness: My house is the same way. No cable and no DSL.

It totally sucks. A stupid, old 33.6 modem (running at a glorious full speed, after over a year of 24000 or lower!) running under Win2k using drivers built for Win95.

At least it still works... Slow inet is better than no inet.

Also... I need to buy some DVD-Rs and burn my whole D: drive. I've never backed any of it up. If I lost it all, I'd be so screwed over, I would cry myself to sleep, then curse up a storm as I slowly drudge through the other 7 computers on my network to see if they happen to have any copy of what I want to save...

I think you get the idea. Damn I need a bigger HD. Only 2-gigs free on a 30gig HD. Thank goodness I'm using a C-drive. Just had to reformat it the other week. Installed a fresh copy of Win2k. Too bad I can't run my favorite games anymore.

Well... Time to go drudge through the tech section to see if I can find any Win2k/FF8 optimizations...

Sephiroth 3D

"One who seeks knowledge from another person, doesn't learn half as much as the one who seeks knowledge for himself." - Vincent Valentine, The Sephiroth Chronicals, Book 1: Resurrection

[email protected]  
Sephiroth 3D's Final Fantasy (Currently Offline)
Sephiroth 3D's Promised Land (http://members.tripod.com/~Sephiroth3D/index.html)
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-14 01:26:00
yeah, it sucks.

im gonna wait a while before getting a dvd burner.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Threesixty on 2001-10-14 04:30:00
DVD burners kinda worry me......I have a DVD player, a so much as a smudge on the disk causes the movies to skip....I can just imagine what a hassel a replica of a DVD, will be.

DVD's should be in a hard cover.....like 3 1/4 floppies.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Ant on 2001-10-14 09:20:00
Funny you should say that as my mate from Japan has one and you have to have them in a case.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Sephiroth 3D on 2001-10-14 10:34:00
Well, the one we have (The Pionerr DVR-A03) works just like a CDRW, except it burns much bigger CDs and it can burn DVD Video discs that works in any DVD player. (You can also burn small DVDs onto a CDR, but it won't play in commerical DVD devices. But it works just fine on PC-DVD drives.)

Sad part is the cheapest price I can find for blank DVD-Rs is $12. Not exactly cheap. Means I gotta be totally sure about what I burn, otherwise, I've just wasted a $12 CD.

Sephiroth 3D

"One who seeks knowledge from another person, doesn't learn half as much as the one who seeks knowledge for himself." - Vincent Valentine, The Sephiroth Chronicals, Book 1: Resurrection

[email protected]  
Sephiroth 3D's Final Fantasy (Currently Offline)
Sephiroth 3D's Promised Land (http://members.tripod.com/~Sephiroth3D/index.html)
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Alhexx on 2001-10-14 11:31:00
Well, in our Street, Cable is available (theoretically)... but I haven't got enough money to pay for it. And there are no guys to share the price and bandwidth with... so I've got to keep on my 56k the next years... :sad:

 - Alhexx
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-14 15:00:00
even if cable is available first, ill wait for some dedicated bandwidth from the local DSL company
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: mirex on 2001-10-15 06:59:00
If it makes you happy guys I have only 28.8 at home, so Im browsing at great speeds of 3kb/s  :sad:   (if line goes fine)
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: M0T on 2001-10-15 20:13:00
I got my adsl last week and i managed to download 2gb in a weekend :smile:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: ficedula on 2001-10-15 22:18:00
Not bad ... but that's an average/slow day for us ^_^

With four people in the house, it's *fairly* rare to find any time during the day when the connection isn't being hit. Nighttime it's usually free, but the server's on 24/7 of course so now and then big downloads do go on thru the night, hehehe. It's SO nice to look at the 'Bytes received' column and see it spanning multiple gigs ^_^
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-16 00:09:00
damn i need adsl
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: chowderhead on 2001-10-16 02:36:00
Lucky buggers.  Even the sunshine is piped in down here at 56k.   :mad:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-10-16 21:03:00
is more like 44800bps here =) im still downloading it......
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Joey on 2001-11-05 06:36:00
My modem speed is unstable. Sometimes it is 14,400, 33,600, 45,000, 50,600 and 52,000 every now and then.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Darkness on 2001-11-05 21:12:00
mines usually at 48800 or so
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: chowderhead on 2001-11-06 01:09:00
Mine's usually 45333, unless I get a really crappy connect-then it's26600.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: MMiller8 on 2001-11-06 02:19:00
Oh, man, that really suxx0rs.  Anyway, it happened to me two monts ago, and again one month ago.  Luckily, i'm so used to having to delete everything that I didn't lose anything.  I do feel guilty, however, because I now know what caused it, and I gave it to someone else.  A person that would lose everything.  He sounded like he might be able to fix it, but I still feel really guilty.  It was on a *coughpiratedcough* copy of Quake III.  There were two setup files, and one didn't do anything... or so it seemed at the time...  Anyway, I gots winXP now, and I haven't had to delete everything for two weeks, so it's an improvement!
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Joey on 2001-11-07 01:02:00
My dad will delete stuff on my desktop(I usually work my files here) whenever Red Alert 2 fails to load. He says that there is not enough space for RA2(although there is 4.3 GB left!) He deleted my FF9 EPSXE memcards! :mad: Talk about having an orthodox dad who only accept what he thinks as right and not the facts!!
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: MMiller8 on 2001-11-07 01:52:00
Oh, man... that really suxx0rs...
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Joey on 2001-11-07 03:56:00
So don't diss me if I act abnormally.
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: eerrrr on 2001-11-07 15:35:00
Heh, I know how you feel. My sister think the modem effects your computer's speed, and the amount of memory you have left is the only reason a PC crashes!
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: M0T on 2001-11-07 19:02:00
Well Intel seem to think that a processor makes a modem faster...... Anyway Joey your dad may need and incredibly huge swap file :wink:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: vvalentine on 2001-11-07 21:12:00
My computer seems to run slower when I am connected to the Internet also.  It sucks because the speed is usually around 5kbps at the most :evil:.

Joey, let me give you a tip (since I used to use my dad's computer to store sh*t).  Make hidden folders, and make the most visible folder have a name that it looks to be something important.  Like something part of the operating system.  Make like 3 subfolders, and in each of those 3 subfolders make another 2 or 3 subfolders.  Put your stuff there, but make sure you don't infect your dad's computer with a virus (I say it from personal experience).  

-vvalentine :grin:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Joey on 2001-11-08 03:02:00
Thanks. It worked. :wink:
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Ant on 2001-11-08 07:45:00
Get magic folders- its blatently desgined for paedos to hide their kiddy porn - but if you've got less sinister intentions just do a search for it on Google (http://www.google.com)Pc Magic (http://www.pc-magic.com)
Title: Don't you just HATE it...
Post by: Joey on 2001-11-09 05:16:00
I'm playing pranks on my PC. Go there! (http://www.rjlsoftware.com)