Oh crap, not again!

[hansolo77]

So I decided I would load up GameEx and play some Popeye for the GOTM competition (since I haven't done so yet). Lo and behold, the GameEx shortcut in my Start Menu doesn't work. It said the link is pointing to a location no longer available. Whhhuuuuuat? I opened up Windows Explorer, and what do I find? My entire Game drive is not listed. So apparently my HDD has failed (again). I lost all my GameEx data, all my emulators, all my roms, all my artwork, all my videos... ugh. Something like 75 (last count was at 74 I believe) systems gone. I hate my life.

I'm in the process of encoding some DVD's at the moment, so I can't reboot and check the BIOS to see if something got screwed up somewhere. I hope this is just temporary. I don't really have any backups.

[GimmeClassics]

I'm sorry to hear you have problems with your HDD ....I hope you can somehow recover your lost data.

There's a lot of knowledge at this forum about IT / computers. Maybe somebody can help you out...? I wish I could help you but I'm afraid my knowledge about these things is too basic

I really hope you can solve this problem....

You should however not "hate your life" because of this. You can always rebuild your collection. Building an arcade collection is also part of the fun of our Arcade gaming hobby The GameEx community is always here to help you out. Just ask and we'll try to assist you wherever we can

[hansolo77]

Oh I know. Its just a bummer that it happened. There's no doubt I'll re-establish my collection. I still have my registration email Tom sent me, so a license key isn't going to be a problem. When I go through the rebuilding process though, I'm going to be a little more dilligent on mainting a good backup of everything. I'm not worried about the artwork/videos for the games because the downloader can get all that for me, quite easily. It's just a pain in the backside to have to start from scratch again. It's wierd that it would happen to this drive twice. I just got this new drive less than 2 years ago. I would understand a drive failing because it's constantly in use; but this one just kinda sits there in low power all the time until I get some free time to play a game (which happens rarely nowadays). Oh well. My encoding is only about 50% (I make my own DVD's of recorded TV shows and home movies) so I won't know if I can recover the drive till probably tomorrow.

Sucks; always seems something happens to my computer or the server's computer when I'm on vacation (now) or a long 3-day weekend.

[helpman]

if it's an external HDD you might try checking if it's not the drive but the controller inside the case. That happened to me one. The controller failed, so I purchased a new drive and (as then I didn't know) tried recover the damaged hard drive just to try, removing the new one and attaching the damaged one to the new controller. (inside the case there was just a normal HDD attached to a small circuit board) so after replacing it, the computer recognised it. so I just got that hard drive connected as a normal internal drive...

[hansolo77]

Yeah it's an internal drive.

Strangely enough, the drive seems to be working now. I rebooted the computer but the drive wouldn't turn on. I unplugged the drive, gave it a few shakes (no pounding) and plugged it back in. Turned the computer on, and it started working again. I don't know, maybe the drive just went into standby. I don't remember ever turning that function on, but it would make sense that I did since I don't use the drive as often as I do the others. Oh well, seems to be working ok for now (knock on preverbial wood). I'll be keeping an eye on it though. I'm already in the process of burning off DVD's of it's contents just incase it DOES fail.

[Draco1962]

I unplugged the drive, gave it a few shakes (no pounding) and plugged it back in.

Dude! It's a hard drive, not a Magic 8-Ball!

"Magic 8-Ball... Will I recover all of my data?"

Reply - "My sources say no."

[Tempest]

LMAO.

[DazzleHP]

Ouch man you just seem to have the crappest (word? is now) luck with HDD's! Take it from a guy who learn't the hard way, and tortured myself with it - but at the same have a kind of sadistic love for starting again - back that shizzle up man. Or like me, get all the data tatooed on your girlfriends/wife's body then sacrifice her when things go wrong. My choice ends in loneliness, the former ends in happy families. Your choice

Glad it worked out ok this time for you man... if you want i know a good inker

[Tempest]

Han - PM me your address, and I will send you one of my drives. You will regret it someday if you don't have a backup.

[hansolo77]

Dude! It's a hard drive, not a Magic 8-Ball!

Lol, thats basically what I did too.. shook it like a Magic 8-Ball. But it worked, so whose to say it was dumb. I had it turned on the side, and was basically shaking it horiztonally, not vertically, so I didn't get a head crash.

Ouch man you just seem to have the crappest (word? is now) luck with HDD's!

I know. They must not be making drives like they used to. Most of my failures came from the server, which I think was due to the fire and the water getting into the mechanics, and overheating. I've fixed the overheating problem, my hottest drive is only 47c now. But I agree; I have the crappiest luck with drives!

Han - PM me your address, and I will send you one of my drives. You will regret it someday if you don't have a backup.

I can't afford to buy a drive from you, and you can't afford to just GIVE me one of your drives, so don't worry about it. Thanks though.

[wolfman24]

I keep all my games on portable hard drive so if power ever goes out take it and go to a laptop

[Adultery]

I doubt Tempest was trying to sell you anything Han.

[Tempest]

Nope. Just have one laying around that I'm not using. You are welcome to it if you want it. Thanksgiving is just around the corner you know.

Sooner or later your drive will crash for good, and you will wish you had taken me up on my offer. My system crashed years ago, I lost everything, and that is why I am no longer actively using GameEx. I just didn't want to take the time to set it all up again.

[GimmeClassics]

Wow Han. An once in-a-life-time offer

Very kind of you Tempest !

...@ Tempest: I kind of need an Arcade Cabinet. Do you happen to have a spare one...? LOL

[hansolo77]

Spoke to soon perhaps. My computer was acting funky this morning. I turned it on, and it switched off in about 2 seconds, then turned itself back on for 2 seconds and back off again. Did that for about 5 minutes before I got tired of it and just unplugged the damn thing for about 10 minutes. Now it boots up but the game hdd is not spinning up again. I just don't get it. I understand things getting old and breaking down, but seriously?

[Draco1962]

Not knowing your setup, is it possible to disconnect all drives but the boot and game drive and maybe connect one of the power leads from a disconnected drive to the game drive? That may help to rule out a few things, either a bad power connection and/or a power supply possibly about to fail.

You may be able to pull the game drive and move everything from it to the replacement drive via an external enclosure. IDK

[hansolo77]

Well I did some experimenting, and I think it's the power supply, or at least one of the cables. I plugged in and out the drive's power multiple times and heard it spin up like 3 times each time then ultimately give up trying. It did this every time I plugged it in. I can hear the disks spinning inside the enclosure, so I know it's not like the platters crashed or something. I tried a different plug (on same cable) and strangely enough, the DVD drive I have on the same cable also "spun up" as soon as I plugged it in. That's very strange. I duplicated it multiple times, that every time I plugged the HDD in, the DVD spun up. I unplugged the DVD drive, and plugged the HDD in. It had a difficult time, but on the first try the HDD did finally spin up and become recognizable by the computer. I'm running a chkdsk on it now, just in case. I'm wondering if the power cables or the power supply might be going bad. This DVD drive is a spare I have and every time the computer comes out of standby I hear it spin up. Perhaps it's causing too much drain on the power supply all at once. I wish I had another computer I could plug this HDD into to see if it spins up properly or if it's just dying.

On a side note. Last time this HDD failed (when I first started this thread) I was able to get it load up. I ran a Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics on it. It's a WD drive, and that's their low-level diagnostics tool. It passes all SMART checks, as well as the quick and extended (sector by sector) scans. Now that the drive is running, I'm also having no difficulties with the chkdsk, it's chugging away fine. It looks like the problem is just when the computer shuts off or goes into standby, and then the drive has trouble spinning up to 'wake up'.

[Draco1962]

PSU's can be tricky to diagnose. If you bought a branded PC and are using the original PSU, it is possible that the PSU was just rated to handle a high load for the original equipment installed. If you have added since, it is easy to exceed the maximum of the original configuration. If you are running multiple HDDs, DVD/Blu-Ray players/writers, fans, etc., then your kit may not be able to support it. One other thing is that PSUs won't last forever, so if it is more than a few years old it might be time to replace it.

[hansolo77]

Yeah, it's a custom built PC, and the power supply is pretty old. Looking back, the fire we had (that caused so much trouble with the drives and things) was over 3 years ago. All my equipment is at least that old (minus the replacement drives, and the MOBO for this computer). I realize things don't last forever. I'm in the catch-22 area right now. I need to refresh my equipment, but I'm stuck with limited funds. If I upgrade one thing, it'll have to be everything. The power supply should be an easy upgrade. But I really need to branch out and get onboard with the newest technologies. I'd like to get an I5/I7 processor, but that means upgrade the MOBO as well, which usually also means a new RAM set too. Plus, this computer is my HTPC/Media Center. I have specific requirements for expansion slots to be able to house my tuner cards. This is all stuff that needs to be considered. Ideally, I'll suddenly come into a bunch of money (casino, lottery, Publisher's Clearing House) and not have to worry about this stuff anymore. In the mean time, I can really just save for months and buy replacement parts as needed. Luckily the prices of drives is continuing to drop, so this 500gb drive isn't very expensive to replace anymore if it really is the drive that's failing. The power supplies can get rather expensive though, especially if you want one that rated and capable of heavy loads. I dunno, I don't really think my computer is all that 'busy' to really require a heavy loader. I have 3 HDD's (OS/Recorded TV, Storage [houses videos I encode], and Games), 1 BluRay/HD-DVD/DVD-RW drive, 3 case fans (small), and a PCI-E graphics card. It's not at all like my server, that has 10 HDD's, 6 120mm case fans, 1 dvd and 1 floppy. -BUT- the power supply I'm using was the old one I replaced in the server last year because it was recommended to get a better load bearing supply, so it's possible I'm experiencing the same issues I was having on the server.

I'll definitely consider a new power supply as my solution to this HDD. But I'm still concerned it might just be the drive. Why would only this drive be having trouble, and not all of them together?

[hansolo77]

I would like to take the opportunity to make public my appreciation and thanks to Tempest for offering me his old spare drive. I received it around 2:00pm yesterday and spent 7.5 hours manually moving the files from the old drive to the new. I was doing it 1 folder at a time, and it would get about half way through a folder than "die" on me. A quick unplug/replug routine then followed, allowing the drive to spin back up and let the move procedure continue. I only had to do that about 50 times, lol! But in the end, I was able to move all the files. Strangely, the drive still showed files inside of folders that weren't moved. I tried to move them, and they said they moved, but they remained in the folder. Other folders had a similar reaction, but instead when I tried to access the folders, it would say the folder no longer exists. I tried to refresh the folder display but they still showed up. Oh well. When all was said and done, I did a chkdsk on the drive, and it found 4 bad files where the indexes said there were files but they weren't really there. Hopefully when I tried to re-move those files and it SAID it did, it didn't just move 'nothing' over and now those files don't work. It was late last night so I don't remember what they were to check. But anyway, I did try to load up GameEx (it updated) and after it finished scanning all my folders, the menus displayed and I was able to browse around. Because it was late, I didn't bother playing anything, but I'm sure they'll work fine (least I HOPE they do ). So yeah, Thanks Tempest for your kind offer. Hopefully this one will last longer than the other one did (or at least long enough for me to get a decent backup made).

[nullPointer]

So glad to hear that the new drive is working out for you Han! Sounds like it was pretty crazy getting all the files moved over.

Yeah that Tempest is a pretty great guy! Sounds like the community owes you a virtual beverage of your choice there Temp!

[Draco1962]

So glad to hear that the new drive is working out for you Han! Sounds like it was pretty crazy getting all the files moved over.

Yeah that Tempest is a pretty great guy! Sounds like the community owes you a virtual beverage of your choice there Temp!

Give him a jumbo tube of K-Y.. he seems to be sweet on that for some reason...

[hansolo77]

Give him a jumbo tube of K-Y.. he seems to be sweet on that for some reason...

[Tempest]

That was great Draco. Way to wait until the proper time to deliver the punchline.

Now, picture 3 years from now when a newb is reading this thread and comes across your comment.

Did I just say that?