OK, I have the drive. I'm not yet starting the recovery because I want to read some more things. If anyone has any last-minute tips, that'd be appreciated. I think for right now, I'll try MHDD followed by simply getting the files through Windows, and if those fail wait for zone/shadeMe/HeX for assistance.

Also, far as I can tell, the replacement drive does have the latest firmware.

You have my prayers that everything goes well. Not much weight to them, though. I pray to nothing specific, and I'm not very pious. But if I could lend you some of my amazing luck and good karma, I'd cut out my spleen and send it to you.

I currently have boot disks of mhdd, PartedMagic (liveCD linux that includes myrescue) and Acronis. I don't know that I'll even get to those last two tonight without some guidance, but I have them burned at any rate. I'm going to try mhdd and Windows now.

Does anyone know if mhdd's ATOF and/or FF command can be used to copy a disk to another? It seems like that would be their purpose but I don't really know. It seems odd to have the intermediate step of going to a file.

Just dropping in to say good luck.
I had a drive that failed on me once.... I just gave up on it because luckily there was nothing important on it.
Just don't jump the gun and do anything hasty. The future of ARES rests on your shoulders tonight.

Ravin

Well, MHDD... freaked out. It was going OK for about 30,000 blocks, with a few 'x' UNC errors, and then suddenly it got nothing but '!' ABRT errors for abour 30,000 blocks before it stopped, claiming "CATASTROPHIC FAILURE" because the log couldn't be written. However, I think that is due to it being on a CD-R (not RW), so it ran out of room to put the log on? Not entirely sure.

Im here only for a moment (tomorrow I'll be able to jump in)
This will help you alot, a MHDD manual
http://www.real-world-systems.com/docs/MHDD_en_manual.html
http://forum.hddguru.com/ --- these people are a vary informative

Ah, that is much more useful than the one I was using, yes. Thanks.

Tried it on the family desktop, BIOS didn't see it. Sort of odd, since the BIOS on my own computer did when I ran mhdd (I decided to do mhdd before doing the drive swap). Don't really understand that. Anyway, it's now in the family desktop, and I can attempt the imaging through it. Gonna wait til tomorrow for more advice, though; thanks zone.

EDIT: Since my BIOS sees the drive (or, did before the swap... <.<), would it be worthwhile to put the family desktop's drive in my computer along with my drive, and see if booting it there works? Can you even do that? (put a drive with Windows installed from one computer and have it boot windows for another)

Logs are likely to be stored in a RAM drive than in the source media - Whatever caused the failure message to appear is likely to be residing in the confines of your HDD.


You won't be able to pull that off - Windows will die and throw a BSOD or two on boot.

Well that's... terrifying. So I guess it's time to do the copy thing. Uhm. Anyone familiar with myrescue?

Im go to take 20 minuets to look it over. I'll get back to you.

I found it in PartedMagic under, Accessories>lxerminal> type "man MyRescue". for instructions/ "MyRescue(command like "-b" )" to run it
Most of the instructions are in the MyRescue program.

Huh, PartedMagic had it listed http://partedmagic.com/programs.html. Is that incorrect/optional/something else?

Also, where are you reading about myrescue? I can't even find any docs...

Did you find it?
if not look at post #135

Quick post : The Acronis Boot ISO I sent your way should also contain the Acronis Disk Director tool. You can use it if PartedMagic starts to harass you.

Aha, OK. I don't currently have it running. Anyway, I've added it to Parted Magic (since it would appear that it's not part of the default?), and re-burned the disk. Going to boot up my computer (without the hard disk) and play with it a bit.

EDIT: I see reburning was probably unnecessary. Ah, well. Anyway, jeez, that thing is impressive. OK, the two things I'd like to know are:
1. How do I indicate that I want the block bitmap to be put somewhere else than the destination drive? The destination drive, being exactly the same size as the source, shouldn't have the block bitmap on it from what I can tell. Therefore, I'd like to put it on an external HD I have available. How would I do that?

2. How should the destination be partitioned/formatted (or not)? myRescue seems to be putting everything in image file(s), which presumably have to go on a formatted disk? Seems unlikely that I'd be able to fit the contents of the entire source drive on a formatted destination drive, seeing as it has to be using some of its own space for the formatting and internal things, right?


Mm, I have that burned too. Only thing is that I'm a bit concerned about having heard that it doesn't work well with damaged drives.

An update: with many, many thanks to zone, I have copies of all of my ARES documentation, the source code of the version of NifSE that I sent out to everyone (there are some very minor changes made since then, but I can totally handle that - shadeMe, my CES messaging might not come out exactly the same as it did the first time, but I suspect from your end it won't matter), as well as a large number of my own personal documents that I am very glad to have saved.

On the other hand, due to my own clumsiness, I may have killed my processor

I was just doing my part to make the world go around .

So the ARES source was recovered?

Yes, the source code was recovered.

Honestly, the spreadsheets I've made for ARES are a lot more important than the code. The code needs a lot of rewriting anyway, I think. But redoing all those spreadsheets is just... well, it wasn't going to happen.

I'm still going, too. I got my entire Music folder, which is impressive. Currently working on videos. If that works, I'm going to try my Oblivion\Data\ folder - I really don't need that for anything (already got all my own personally written stuff), but it will save me some headaches. Will also try grabbing the absolute latest copy of NifSE, since that's apparently an option.

glad to hear everything's been sorted out! hope that your processor isn't dead though!

Great news indeed!As for the changes to the messaging code, who cares ?! But indulge me, how did you processor get screwed ?

PS : Stupid forum

Three cheers for the oblivion modding community!

First off - To DragoonWraith for writing what will become the most impressive oblivion utility made to date (barring OBSE)
Secondly - To zone22, Hexoff, and every one else who helped to divert disaster this week.
And Finally - To Bethesda, without whom none of this would be possible!!!!

This was perhaps the coolest thread I have ever read. I don't think I have ever seen a more impressive show of general compassion for another modder (or person).

So,

Hip Hip Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray!! HIP HIP HURRAY!!!!!

I actually grabbed the latest source code too So it will match.

Anyway, after swapping in the replacement drive and the dying drive, my desktop would not load the BIOS. It'd turn on, fans would spin up, lights would blink, but no beep, no BIOS. This happened to the computer several weeks ago, which I ultimately solved by reseating the processor - I forget why that was an issue or what it solved, but it had worked. Having tried everything else zone and I could think of, I went ahead and reseated the processor again.

Part of reseating a processor is re-applying the thermal paste, because once you take off the heat-sink you can't put it back on without new paste. I have some paste from the last time, so that was fine. But like an idiot, I managed to accidentally get some of the thermal paste on the bottom of the processor - on the contacts. I tried to clean that off as best I can, but now the computer shuts itself off immediately after I turn it on, unlike before where it would happily sit there, fans and such on, and not load the BIOS. I'm not sure I'll be able to clean the chip well enough to get it working again.


Agreed, seriously. This was awesome from everyone. Several of you have been added to the credits section, and the only reason I haven't added everyone is because I was heading out the door when I wrote it and didn't want to delay thanking those of you who really came through with advice, links, help, and especially HeX, shade, and zone for offering to sit on the phone and talk me through things, and to Gekko and HeX for offering to pay for stuff. That's amazing, and I really appreciate it.

Heh, better yet I hope you start dumping your code in DropBox or something (or use a private repo on SF or GH) - We just can't have anymore shocks like what just passed.

Nasty. Well, at least your mobo is fine. Hope you get things up and running soon.

Many thanks to HeX, zone, Wyzard and the others that helped out DW :thumbsup:

Was thinking I'd use Google Code for that, honestly. But yes, this is very high on my list of priorities. Right now I'm double triple I've-lost-count checking that I have everything I want off the drive before packing it up and returning it to Seagate.


Err... well, hopefully. The dirty CPU was in the socket briefly when it failed to turn on, which means some of those pin/spring-things might also have gotten some thermal paste on them. Possible that it will also be problematical. Not really sure yet.


So do I. In the meantime, I should be able to more-or-less use the family desktop.


Heh, you shortchange yourself by not including "shadeMe" in that list.