ALEXIS is on hold!!

**deadweasel** · 01-11-2004, 12:44 AM

SASAMI (my primary development system) has suffered a catastrophic drive failure, which took ALL of my ALEXIS source code with it. The images and compiled program are still intact on the ALEXIS core (big whoop), but everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that meant anything to me for development, as well as a good deal of other stuff, is straight up GONE.

I'm in tears over this, since almost 80gb of data have been lost. I have learned a couple valuable lessons today. The first is that you should ALWAYS back up something important to you, no matter what the cost of the media. I will be purchasing an external shell for the new drive when the replacement comes (it's still under warranty) for backup purposes. The second is that DVD burners don't look quite so expensive when seen in light of something this disastrous. I have been an expert Windows user for years, and have never experienced a spontaneous drive failure until now. The experience has made me a true believer in the concept of having a room lined with CD shelves for backups.

So, as it is, until and unless I can get this drive recovered somehow, ALEXIS is shot right to hell in a handbasket. Trust me, I am willing to pay a couple hundred to recover anything I can so I can restart development, but until that can happen, I am out of the loop. I suppose I could start again from scratch, but oh my God, the thought boggles my mind. You kind folks have already contributed enough to my coding efforts that to attempt to recreate it would be very difficult indeed, especially in light of the fact that a few of the controls I relied upon to make things look sweet are no longer available.

I will be spending a few hours attempting to rebuild the library with what I have already burnt to CDs, but I will be leaving for California for a week as of Wednesday. After that, I'm hoping to return to my store to see a shiny new hard drive waiting for me.

Thanks to all who have offered their assistance with the project thus far. I fully intend to restart the development if I am unable to get that drive recovered, but I would rather not, and I think all you VB developers out there understand very well why!

**siueclipse** · 01-11-2004, 01:07 AM

hey dude, send me the drive. ill bet you 100 bux i can get the data back.

james@antsmarching.org

**deadweasel** · 01-11-2004, 02:11 AM

UPDATE:

I MAY have this drive salvaged! Praise to OnTrack and their EasyRecovery software! At this moment, it is scanning the drive, and bless its heart, it's actually FINDING MY SHIZNAT!!!

When the scan completes I will attempt to transfer ALEXIS first and foremost. Everything else is candy compared to that. I may just be on temporary hiatus instead of outright out of commission if this works!

I'm shaking right now, it's got me that hopeful for my life's work. (Bear in mind that there is many years' worth of work on this drive besides ALEXIS itself, including everything I've learned up to this point with VB and my carPCs.)

EDIT: SAVED!!!! ALEXIS' core software source is on its way over to the new drive at this very moment! RELIEF!! Now it's going to take a few days to get SASAMI back to her regular self, and then I shall begin development once more!
Screw Coke! Tonight, this calls for a beer (or six).

**frodobaggins** · 01-11-2004, 04:27 AM

If it helps, I still have the week old code you sent me.

Nevermind, I see the edit

**mst** · 01-11-2004, 04:59 AM

We are all very happy for you
http://www.simspognon.com/images/skynet.gif
Let that be a lesson for us all (and a good excuse for buying a DVD-burner)

**NightHunter** · 01-11-2004, 08:28 AM

My heart just skipped a beat, I have been awaiting the release for this software for a while and to find out that it took a sh1t was a bit un-nerving. Anyway congrats on being able to recover the data.

**deadweasel** · 01-11-2004, 12:10 PM

You think YOU were scared NightHunter? Holy crap, I was never so relieved as when I was startled awake at my desk by the stock Windows error sound (that deep orchestral hit that shakes house speakers). I was terrified that the process had just errored out, but it turns out I was being signaled that everything went through ok!

SAVED!

As was posted earlier, a DVD burner would be in order here, but I'm still too poor to just run out and buy one. I suck. It's a day of burning CDs for me, looks like!

Thanks for the kind words of support fellas!

**R3l0ad** · 01-11-2004, 01:36 PM

Good luck weasel, keep us updated on your progress... maybe you need to keep a remote copy of the source code!!!!

What better place to post your source code but here... j/k!!!Well good luck

**deadweasel** · 01-11-2004, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by R3l0ad

Good luck weasel, keep us updated on your progress... maybe you need to keep a remote copy of the source code!!!!

What better place to post your source code but here... j/k!!!Well good luck

Hehehehe... Nice try my friend, but be patient, all will be available in time.
For the time being, I am going to be using the store's clout with Western Digital to see if I can throw a sob story (that almost came true) and get them to send me an 8mb cache version to replace the 2mb I will be sending them.

While that's happening however, I will be spending some time rebuilding SASAMI and transferring the core stuff to a CDRW and to the ALEXIS core for backup storage. I will be damned if this will ever happen to me again! Once bitten twice shy (no NOT the Great White song) and all that...

**MikeH** · 01-11-2004, 04:53 PM

Weasel,

I think we can all say we've learned similar lessons. In fact, I've had 2 WD Caviar drives fail in the past 2 yrs.

I would suggest that a backup (on the same machine or a remote machine) 80mb HDD might be easier than burning a bunch of DVD's.....

Good luck with the recovery!!