justin_tx_16 Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 Ok, just as i was opening all my paragraphs for my english paper the power goes out and i am back about 6 months... don't have any real explaination on how that happened but now my paper, and everything from the past 6 or so months is gone. do you have any idea on how I can get this information back w/o having to callin a hard drive recovery person? of course this paper is due tommorrow morning. thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 Not good I was lucky to get back to DOS on the C: drive and i could find the files when I had a majot problem in the spring. cd c: dir /p cd changes the directory(folder) dir tells you what is in their /p is a pause so all of the files do not scroll so fast If you have Windows XP I am told DOS ceases to exist. I back up once a week it is scary stuff when you lose a hard drive and the bigger ones nowdays are much less reliable than a 5 or 10 gig drive from a few years back. I had a 16 month old IBM drive that was 30 gig go bad in May 2002; it was a real bummer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 21, 2002 Author Share Posted October 21, 2002 ...crap... it was windows XP pro if that helps any Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodj101 Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 well, my computer has an auto backup feature for things like this. I have done the same thing as you before. type a 20 page paper, bump the power cord, and comp goes out. but than, when I boot up again and enter word, everything is still there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 21, 2002 Author Share Posted October 21, 2002 some of us are just not that lucky. i am waiting for PC Pitstop to call me back, great tech support BTW, just $19.95 a call, not per hour, only if they fix the problem. i have a feeling i won't be paying anything, and for once that is bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodj101 Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 yeah, I know what ya mean. I don't think this is a problem that can be fixed. maybe you can explain to your teacher, and get your parents to testify so they he/she believes you? because if you show up and just say on your own, "I couldn't do my paper because we had a power outage", it will look really suspicous, and they'll probably just say something like, "you should have planned for that", or, "you had all night to retype it, why werent you doing that? " Oh well, the Rastafarians always say, "Jah will only give you as much as you can bear". You must be able to bear this, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 21, 2002 Author Share Posted October 21, 2002 yeah, well the teacher and my mom have already been through a few fits... so no go with the teacher even believing my parents. gah, i am in the top 4% of high school students in the english department and still can not manage to get my english teacher to like me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodj101 Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 uhg, not good. How can you be one of the best studenets yet be so hated? lol. I have been in that situation. My english teacher last year didn't like me at all, and we used to always get in arguments. I had the top score in her class the entire year, but nnnnnnnooooooooo, she still didn't like me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodj101 Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 while your sitting around waiting for the repair vato's to show up, download the song, "Thunder and Birdies". It sounds great when used with high quality headphones! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynnm Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Outside chance.......... Run Scandisk and then: Start>Run>CMD Undelete> *.doc - - assuming that the file in question was an MS Word file -- If not substitute the appropriate file extension. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Justin - Doesn't XP have an auto recovery function, with checkpoints and such? I don't know anything about it, except that I have to disable it sometimes to do a low level virus scan... DD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 22, 2002 Author Share Posted October 22, 2002 it does have the autorecovery, but you can only go back in time... i am back in time by 6 months plus it messed up myc drive andnow it thinks i have only 120mb free, you need 200+ to even get the restore function Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynnm Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Sounds like you may have been clipped by a power surge ,( a momentary blast of high voltage when the power is restored after a failure ) , Can you run Chkdsk from the command prompt ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 22, 2002 Author Share Posted October 22, 2002 yeah i have already done a scan disc and defragmented (100gb's is not easy to defrag...). i have done everything i could think of. my dad's companies 24/7 tech support could not help and neither could pcpitstop.com's 24/7 live tech support. it was definately not a normal power outage since i was actually shocked by the surge. it destroyed my Microsft Optical mouse I paid like $60 for. It also blew up my BRAND NEW USB 2.0 webcam and my sound card no longer works after being reinstalled (it was connected via USB, so anything that was on, connected to my USB ports was fried. i have not tried my printer or scanner, hopefully they are ok. my promedia 5.1's SEEM to be alright, they turn on and there is no buzzing, but i can not get my computer to play sound so... and there is absolutely NO sound coming out which means that it is getting NOTHING from the sound card, the card is not even carrying power. so it looks like i lost.. $60 mouse $120 camera $140 sound card possible $250 printer possible $279 scanner and hopefully my $400 computer speakers survived. i will get a new card today and see what i can do about that. I lost a ton of $$$ in software PowerDVD 4.0 XP $74.95 WinDVD 4 $79 Jasc $87 Macromedia Fireworks $299 DreamWeaver MX $399 MediaJukebox 8.0 $25 I THINK that I can get the two macromedia products back if i have my serial number on another computer, i did the download online thing so I don't have the cd, should have burned a copy... I also lost about 2000 emails, my entire website, and my clients websites, for now at least, i have backups online for my clients and i think i may have a backup for my own. Should'nt my $60+ surge protector prevent this kind of stuff? i thought that was its purpose. Well I am just going to stay home today and rewrite 9+ pages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Whenever I order software on-line via download service, the first thing I do is always burn the downloaded file, along with a copy of the order confirmation e-mail to a CD! That way not only will I have the original file I paid for, but proof that I paid for it, especially in cases like this. As for the software, I guess you can at least look if you have an order confirmation or serial number saved somewhere and call to ask if you can get another download. Also, I have a rider on my home insurance to cover just such unfortunate situations like this. However, that will only help with replacing hardware. Unless a disk-recovery tool is able to get back your missing data, or you have a recent backup, you are pretty much SOL. One thing I noticed - you should not have defragmented the drive. That pretty much lost all hope for attempts at recovering (the files have been rearranged and the missing data may have well been overwritten). Was there lightening in your area? If not, I am willing to bet a transformer shorted out, got overloaded and then blew up. It happened here at work a few years ago and we lost alot of equipment, which were on very expensive surge suppressors. Surge suppressors can only do so much. I have seen a transformer blow up less than 50 feet from where I was standing earlier this summer - must have overloaded from all the people cranking thier air-conditioners! I just about soiled myself! Was some pretty cool fireworks, though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 22, 2002 Author Share Posted October 22, 2002 well i did the defrag after trying everything i could, including norton, to get anything back, to no avail. never heard of this ever happening. lightening??? heck yeah it is texas, one minute it is a beautiful day, the next all hell breaks loose. last night... hell broke loose, and all day today it has been reigning supreme. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluless Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 I used to call them Texas Sh*t storms. I just hated it when the sky turned green. Sorry about your zap-e-rooed file . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eq_shadimar Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 Justin - I think that you are screwed in my professional opinion (shh don't tell anyone I do this for a living). Running scandisk or defrag are big no no's in situations like this. If you formatted your HD file system using FAT32 you may have been able to get the information back by booting from a DOS floppy and finding the file. This works for us lots of times when HD's are starting to go bad. If you formatted under NTFS then all bets are off. Some points for the future: As you have learned Surge Protectors are not always 100%. I always recommend a UPS with a built in surge protector. Most of the times the batteries in the UPS combined with the surge protection will prevent problems like this. This is because your system is really always running off the batteries. Backups backups backups. If all of this information is that important (esp the client information) you really should invest in a backup system. Even burning the information to CD-R would be ok. Personally at my house I am running a Promise IDE RAID controller in a RAID 5 configuration with 3 40 GIG HD's (80 GIG total usable space). This means I can lose one entire HD and not lose any data. I back up using either CD-R or DVD's and I have a UPS with surge protector. Overkill?? Maybe but well worth it in my opinion. There are places that you can send your HD off to for recovery. The average cost is $2500.00 but if the information is that important to you you can get it back. Laters, Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 If lightening struck nearby, there is nothing a surge suppressor can do to stop it, not even the good ones! Sounds like you took an indirect lightening strike (must have struck a powerpole down the road and the surge went into your home's wiring). Better check that other things in the house did not get trashed, such as the TV's etc. In my professional opinion, I'll have to agree with eq_shadimar's professional opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted October 22, 2002 Author Share Posted October 22, 2002 FWIW, my disks are NTSC... no stupid, what is it? something similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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