[Alpha] NifSE v1.0 : IV - Oblivion

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:54 am

Go here and read up/listen up BEFORE!!!! doing anything
http://www.podnutz.com/myharddrivedied
http://www.myharddrivedied.com/

How dead is it? (dose it make clinking noises?)

and were did you save it to?

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:29 pm

:cryvaultboy:

(mailed you)

On the solution side of things, this thread seems to offer a bunch of tools to recover the source from the dll:

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t100155-recover-source-from-dll.html

Not my area of expertice, so I don′t have any further comments, it just seems like it′s recoverable with "ease"?

EDIT: That′s just a first I noticed with the first google search I made, could be the answer is none of those tools, it was just an example of how there′s a load of applications for recovering the source from the dll....

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:08 am

You can turn off HDD smart checking in your BIOS, which might allow you to get the drive going. You'll need another drive with windows to boot your machine, but there's a fair amount of data recovery software available that can pick up data from knackered (unmountable) drives. It really depends: If it's full on mechanical failure you're probably stuffed. However, in most cases failures are not as serious as that, and usually down to the drive tables being corrupted and you can usually recover the majority of the data without having to lift it off the platters (this is the thing that's mentally expensive and the only option for mechanical failures). I wish you the best of luck with recovering it.

HeX

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:00 pm

OK, full story, as I wrote on a tech support site I found while Googling:

First, I came home to my computer endlessly loading Windows (it had been left on). Reboot, after several tries, Windows refuses to load. Try Safe Mode, and it doesn't even get that far, instead throwing up maybe a screen's worth of lines that read:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system32\blah.ext

I try to use Windows Setup disk's Recovery Console to run chkdsk, that hangs at 75%, and I eventually turn it off. Looking in the partition management section (where you choose where to install Windows), I see C:\ listed as follows:

C:\ Partition 1 [Unknown] 25000 MB (24999 MB free)

The other two partitions are both labeled correctly, with [NTFS] labels, and the correct amount of memory being used.

Despairing my C:\ partition, I attempt to reformat it (NTFS, not-quick version), which takes about two hours and ends up failing. I then try to delete the partition, and Windows Setup says it cannot delete the partition, and takes me back to the previous screen - where it now says it cannot detect any disk.

This is where I now stand. I have literally hundreds of hours of irreplaceable work on the drive, which at the same time I cannot afford to save with data recovery services
as they cost a small fortune and it was all hobby-related work; I simply cannot justify the expense, as much as I want to.

As things stand now, the drive spins up, but the BIOS doesn't see it at all, nor does the Windows Setup disk. A different drive I have is recognized (but that disk has problems of its own), so it's not the connections...

Is there anything I can do?

I recently tested the drive using Seagate's tools; there was no problem found. It's under warranty, but that doesn't cover my data. I have no idea if either of those facts is relevant, but there it is.

EDIT: Retested with SeaTools, using a bootable disk. Received a notice that "SMART TRIPPED", do I want to continue the test - presumably not. As far as I'm aware, SMART is supposed to warn you when the drive is failing/failed. Further use could damage it? Would have been nice to know BEFORE I tried to reinstall Windows, sigh.

Is there any hope for at-home data recovery?

You might want to try the old trick of putting the hard drive in the freezer for awhile -- that helps, in some cases, to make it work long enough to recover some data from it. (Put it in a sealed bag to keep moisture out, of course.)

Edit: Also, SMART warnings don't necessarily mean a completely dead drive. SMART is supposed to be able to warn you that the drive is likely to fail within the next 24 hours, so it may not actually have failed yet.

What I would do in this situation is boot a Linux liveCD and see whether the drive is detected by the system and at least remotely readable at the sector level, even if it can't be mounted. If it is, then I'd quickly buy a new drive that's at least as big as the old one, and do a byte-for-byte image copy of the old drive into a big file on the new one, and mark the new file read-only as soon as it's done. That'll preserve what's left on the drive so you don't lose any more if its condition worsens, and from there you can run various data-recovery tools on the backup.

If I were to do this, I'd need help with doing that, as I haven't the foggiest idea how to use a Linux "liveCD" like that.

Go here and read up/listen up BEFORE!!!! doing anything
http://www.podnutz.com/myharddrivedied
http://www.myharddrivedied.com/

Thank you, will read.

How dead is it? (dose it make clinking noises?)

Sounds normal; it spins up at first (makes little/no noise, hard to tell with the computer's fans running, but the HD light goes on and I can feel it spining it I touch the case, but then it spins down and the light goes out, and the BIOS makes no notice of it.

and were did you save it to?

It's in F:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\OBSE Source Code\NifSE\.

:cryvaultboy:

You and me both.

(mailed you)

Will take a look at that when I get the chance; this laptop is horrible and something as taxing as Gmail is a pain to open on it, so that might not happen tonight.

On the solution side of things, this thread seems to offer a bunch of tools to recover the source from the dll:

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t100155-recover-source-from-dll.html

Not my area of expertice, so I don′t have any further comments, it just seems like it′s recoverable with "ease"?

EDIT: That′s just a first I noticed with the first google search I made, could be the answer is none of those tools, it was just an example of how there′s a load of applications for recovering the source from the dll....

Thanks, if it comes down to it, I'll give these a try at the very least.

You can turn off HDD smart checking in your BIOS, which might allow you to get the drive going. You'll need another drive with windows to boot your machine, but there's a fair amount of data recovery software available that can pick up data from knackered (unmountable) drives. It really depends: If it's full on mechanical failure you're probably stuffed. However, in most cases failures are not as serious as that, and usually down to the drive tables being corrupted and you can usually recover the majority of the data without having to lift it off the platters (this is the thing that's mentally expensive and the only option for mechanical failures). I wish you the best of luck with recovering it.

HeX

Actually, for whatever reason it seems that SMART was off; I only found out about it when I ran Seagate's diagnostic tools (which did see the drive, unlike the BIOS/Windows Setup), which suggested I not run the test since the SMART alert had been "tripped". I'm going to call Seagate about it tomorrow.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:13 am

If I were to do this, I'd need help with doing that, as I haven't the foggiest idea how to use a Linux "liveCD" like that.

I can help if you'd like. Download and burn http://www.ubuntu.com/ (9.10 is fine, though 10.04 will be released in a few days) and PM me or email me. (I emailed you recently asking about the alpha so you should have my address.)

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:58 am

Not happening tonight, anyway, but thank you for the offer. I'll e-mail you when I figure out my schedule for the rest of the week about when would be good; as things currently stand, there is a lot of non-NifSE-related stuff that I've lost that I need to now redo ASAP; I can't even really afford to spend any more time than I already have trying to get them back, because today's been entirely wasted and they need to be done this week.

Go here and read up/listen up BEFORE!!!! doing anything
http://www.podnutz.com/myharddrivedied
http://www.myharddrivedied.com/

Sweet zombie jesus, $800+ per drive? Yeah, ok. At least I know that's not happening. I don't have a chance to watch the video now, but I didn't see anything really to read - was there something in particular that I missed?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:01 am

My deepest condolences - I know exactly how you feel. I was in a similar situation a few weeks ago when my HDD started failing. Thankfully, I was quick enough to grab a few backups. In any case, I found that I could get mine to work (as in, be detected by Windows) when I connected it through a USB-IDE bridge. You can try putting yours in a external HDD enclosure and see if it gets detected. Then again, it might not seeing my case was fairly remote.

I can send you a copy of my Acronis TrueImage and Disk Director recovery disk if you'd like. It should be fairly small - Less than 100 MB. I haven't used a linux recovery disc in the past, but I'd say Acronis' tools would be easier to use.

EDIT: You won't be getting far if you tried reversing your DLL - You'll have to wade through the disassembly and manually locate methods, classes and suchlike. The native code won't help much with things either. Should you have enabled compiler/linker optimizations, it would be harder. To be succinct, you won't be spending your time productively. I'm not trying to put you off but am simply stating some of the observations I've made.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:53 pm

Thank you for the offer - I'll likely take you up on that once I've got more time to work on this. For right now, I need to be getting to sleep. Good night all.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:01 am

lol, I wasn't thinking of you using there services. It's a good resource. I've narrowed it down a bit for you. What ever you do, the more you use the bad hard drive, the less likely you will be able to recover data form it. Have a plan.

The plan
Things needed:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
A new hard drive

This site will walk you thew using a boot Linux cd to recover your Data
http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-a-Dead-Hard-Disk

Also, This one might might work depending on how bad the drive is damaged .
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

There are 2 pod casts, about an hour each, that hold a lot of useful information.
http://www.podnutz.com/mhdd006
http://www.podnutz.com/mhdd007

Phases of Data Recovery
1) Image Image, Copy the physical drive
2) Recovery Perform Logical Recovery o
3) done

I've simplified it alot

Absolutely do not ever run any utilities on the original drive until you image it

If you need help just yell

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:35 am

Just occurred to me - Did you send Scruggsy any of the source files during development ? If you did, you could see if he's still got them on him .

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:23 pm

I'm pretty sure me and all the guys who are going to benefit from NifSE would be happy to pay to save your HDD. it wouldn't even take a lot of people to make that easily affordable for pretty much anyone. so that's a last resort possibility as well. I'm NOT going to just sit there with a sad face while something like this happens. btw something similar happened to Brumbek a while ago so he could possibly have suggestions.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:35 am

Just occurred to me - Did you send Scruggsy any of the source files during development ? If you did, you could see if he's still got them on him .

Yes, but that was quite a long time ago. I've sort of kept that in the back of my head as a really last-ditch effort, but if I remember the timing right... I'm not sure I want to rewrite even from that point. I'll take a look to make sure it's as far back as I think it is, but if it is... yeah.

Anyway, everyone else - thank you for your support. Gekko, that's absurdly generous... thanks for saying, but I don't even know if I'd feel comfortable accepting that. As for Brumbek, thanks, I'll PM him to see if he has any advice. zone, thanks for all the links. My biggest worry is that I attempted (and failed) to install Windows on the drive. If it was failing, and the more you attempt to use it during failure the worse things get... that's about as bad as things could be. Seriously.

The drive is under warranty, and Seagate has a program where for $20 they'll send you the new drive before you return the broken one. I'll be looking into doing that, since it would mean I'd automatically have a drive with the same storage capacity. My only concern is how long they'll let me keep the old one to do this... The amount of time during the day in which I can access this computer is fairly limited. I'm not going to even see the computer for at least another 10 hours at this point.

For the case of imaging, does it do it by partition or the whole thing? It's a 700 GB drive, which is fairly large, but the partitions had less than 150 GB used each, and less than 250 GB allocated. I might have another drive large enough for a single partition, though probably not for the whole thing (until I get the replacement)

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:18 am

It will copy the whole drive. When you image a drive, it copy's drive sectors not written data. That said, you will need a 700 GB drive.
Do you have another dive that you could install? Use a live cd on that drive to browse the files on the damaged drive.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:21 pm

@DW: that's not generous, that's selfish, I just Very Much want NifSE to not die in such an absurdly random way, so you don't have to feel uncomfortable

and I'm pretty sure many feel the same way as I do :lol:

although, you are definitely Very Welcome either way.

you have spent so much time and effort on this and ARES and they will make Oblivion So Much Better. and you're doing it for free and sharing it publicly, just like all the amazingly awesome modders out there. that's something I have a deep admiration for in a world otherwise governed by greed. it would hurt my brain to see it all go down the crapper like that :\

edit: btw, that "trying to make it work while broken" thing made me remember when I accidentally dropped my PSP in the crapper ( yeah I did ) and then connected it to a plug and tried turning it on while still full of water. that killed it off entirely, very dumb move but I was just out of my mind at that time. let it be known that it was a good PSP which served me well. I was browsing UESP wiki when that happened btw. guess I could blame Oblivion for that :lol:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:54 am

Thanks guys. I don't have another drive of the same size but Seagate will send me one for $20 since it's under warranty. Will there be any issues with it being exactly the same size (no wiggle room)?

edit: btw, that "trying to make it work while broken" thing made me remember when I accidentally dropped my PSP in the crapper ( yeah I did ) and then connected it to a plug and tried turning it on while still full of water. that killed it off entirely, very dumb move but I was just out of my mind at that time. let it be known that it was a good PSP which served me well. I was browsing UESP wiki when that happened btw. guess I could blame Oblivion for that :lol:

If it had been a Gameboy it would have survived.... seriously, those things are indestructable. I personally know someone who did exactly that and the Gameboy still worked (after it dried, but even though he attempted to turn it on before it had dried). Nintendo Power used to publish stories like that that get mailed in... there was one where a dude ran over his Gameboy with a lawn-mower (the riding kind; it worked after he replaced the screen), a guy who left his Gameboy sitting on the porch railing of his summer home for the winter - in Alaska (worked after it had thawed out and dried off). Those things were insane.

I do have a question, anyway. My reading on this suggests that harddrive failure is rare and harddrives are dependable. This is the third I've had fail in less than four years (two by Western Digital, and this one by Seagate). Could there be something about my computer that's causing this? The motherboard, CPU, RAM, and video card have all been completely without problem since I first built the computer; the Power Supply is the only other thing I've had to replace...

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:25 pm

I do have a question, anyway. My reading on this suggests that harddrive failure is rare and harddrives are dependable. This is the third I've had fail in less than four years (two by Western Digital, and this one by Seagate). Could there be something about my computer that's causing this? The motherboard, CPU, RAM, and video card have all been completely without problem since I first built the computer; the Power Supply is the only other thing I've had to replace...

PSU seems a possible culprit. Use a quality PSU manufacturer (someone once told me that there was no point in skimping on the PSU when you buy all the expensive Intel and NVIDIA CPU GPU etc.), and use a higher kW.

Also, make sure you are ventilating and circulating air enough - if HDDs are too close to each other and other equipment inside the case, heat and dust start accumulating, which severely reduce the life of components. Clean your CPU, fans, and other components by opening the case and dusting off at least once a year (I would recommend every 6 months). Use static protection (ground yourself before by touching anything metal) when you do this to avoid harming the components.

Also, there is a timely tutorial for Data Recovery using a Ubuntu Live CD: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761/recover-data-like-a-forensics-expert-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd/

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:03 am

I forget who the PSU was/is made by, but the fact that the first HDD died on the first PSU and the second two have died on the new PSU would seem to indicate that it's an unlikely suspect.

Dust could be an issue, in that my apartment is for some unknown reason unbelievably dusty. We don't know why this is, but any surface left untouched for a week looks like it's been abandoned for years by the way the dust accumulates. That said, I had cleaned the computer quite thoroughly rather recently, and the case is pretty well made and keeps the (single) HDD well separated I think. It certainly did not seem dusty in there when I opened the case to make sure it wasn't a connection issue/try out one of my dead-ish drives (they don't have total failure like this, but started to become unreliable so I backed them up and removed them before they got this far).

Anyway, thanks for the link, another I'll read.

EDIT: That link was very helpful and gives me some hope. But I'm still very worried that my failed attempt to reinstall Windows has wiped out anything on the drive...

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:36 am

But I'm still very worried that my failed attempt to reinstall Windows has wiped out anything on the drive...

It's not that further use of the drive causes data to be erased, just that if it's a mechanical problem, it can be exacerbated by continued operation. That often just means the drive can no longer read data from the platter even though the data itself may be intact. (In a really bad mechanical failure, things inside may actually break off and fly around and damage the platters, but that's less common.)

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:14 am

[quote name='DragoonWraith' date='27 April 2010 - 11:27 AM' timestamp='1272389265' post='15889036']
Thanks guys. I don't have another drive of the same size but Seagate will send me one for $20 since it's under warranty. Will there be any issues with it being exactly the same size (no wiggle room)?

If you have a hard drive the same size or bigger you will be fine.

I need to point out that recovering data from a functional hard drive is different than one that has failed mechanically, like the one in your case. Your files aren't deleted. If you use any of the tools, such as a live CD, they write data to the hard drive. You must install a new hard drive with Windows. One you have windows functioning add the old hard drive and boot from a Live CD. This way the Live CD will write to the new hard drive and leave the damaged one alone. And then you have two choices, either clone the hard drive or try to recover(by browsing) files off the drive. And the best method is to clone (image) the hard drive then use recovery software to recover the data.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:05 am

DragoonWraith, if your new drive is exactly the same size as the old one then it can't hold both a full backup of the old drive and its own OS installation at the same time. To do the backup and recovery work, you'll have to use something else to boot the machine, such as a liveCD. Once you've recovered whatever you can, and you no longer need the backup, then you can install an OS on the new drive, overwriting part of the backup.

You could install an OS on the new drive and try to do your data recovery directly from the old drive, instead of copying everything to a working drive first, but I wouldn't recommend that. The act of running data-recovery tools, that are scanning through your partitions trying to find recoverable files, is the sort of continued use that can exacerbate mechanical problems with the old drive. It's safer to just read the contents of the old drive once to copy it to the new one, and then the recovery tools can scour it as much as they need to without risk of further loss.

If the old drive's partition table is intact, you have the option of just copying the partition that you care about, instead of the whole thing. To do that, you'd partition the new drive in exactly the same way (same starting/ending cylinders for each partition), copy the data from the old drive into one partition, and install a new copy of Windows in the other partition.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:17 am

I... don't think there are any mechanical problems with the drive. I mean, it powers on, spins up, doesn't make any funny noises. It just doesn't show up in the BIOS or in Windows Setup. Seagate's bootable SeaTools utility ran into the SMART error; is that specifically mechanical?

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:20 pm

The stuff I use makes a copy of the whole drive. It works on a lower level then most tool.

"Seagate's bootable SeaTools utility ran into the SMART error; is that specifically mechanical?" No but it could. Its best to treat it like if the drive failed mechanically. "partition or the whole thing?" That depends on how bad the drive/data is damage. When best case scenario it Might show the partition and worst case you'll image the hole drive. It allso depends on the program. You will just have to see when you get there.

Go to http://www.podnutz.com/lounge(IT chatroom) and see if any one is there. They could give you some more definitive answers

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:03 pm

LifeHacker seems to be hosting another timely tut on data recovery - http://lifehacker.com/5525534/recover-data-like-a-forensics-expert-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd.

PS : I'm uploading the Acronis BootISO as I post this - Shouldn't be long before I can mail you the link.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:53 am

I'll not add any suggestions to confuse after the extensive help you're already getting, I'll just offer my best wishes. Good luck with the recovery, and if it doesn't come off then it's not the end of the world. We all appreciate the hard work you've done (I as much as anyone, since I know exactly what you've been up against), and we can still do a lot with the tools you've already given us.

Best of luck,

HeX

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:00 am

If it's a non-mechanical error, which originally seemed to be affecting only the Windows (C:\) partition, how likely is it that the further complications have spread to the other drives? What kind of non-mechanical problems could cause the disk to be unseen?