Backups == Good

About 2 years ago I had completed (yes completed) a TC for Heretic on a Star Wars theme. I really just did it to see how easy it would be compared to doom. The magical weapons converted to SW energy blasters etc really well (and the mummies made perfect Reeyees). Because I had pinched quite a few graphics from Dark forces and based some of the levels on ones that I had downloaded, this was never going to be distributed further than my friends. Even so, I had put in a good few months work with editors, textures, sprites, HHE (Deh for Heretic) and music. Even if I say so, it looked very good, very profesional. Set between Dark forces 1 and 2 it had a story that evolved through the game and used the three episodes to under line the progression. It started off with uncovering evidence of force capable droids and culminated in a showdown with a powerful dark jedi. I gave a few friends a copy and they all liked it. I burned my final copy onto a CD and deleted all my working files. I sat back, safe in the knowledge that I had a good copy. 18 months pass and I am clearing out my room. A further month or two pass and I go looking for my CD to see if I could get it to work with a source port (don't know if they support HHE files). I'D THROWN THE DAMN THING OUT. What an arse! By now none of my friends still had it installed and all I can do is remember what it used to look like. I am a pratt. Oh yes, big time. I am a pratt. - Ken Benobi

it can recover stuff from acedental formats and stuff

Get a Life, hehe.

Don't forget, Thursday is backup day.

Err, I dont have anything to say about this guy, err don't really care.If anyone has Doom 1.0 or 1.1 please contact me at chasegibson@yahoo.com and we can work something out.Maybe trading a few games anything that the person that has it requests for.I need Doom the *FULL VERSION ONLY*!

Horror!!! Professional Data Recovery is very, very expensive. I have heared of "IBAS-Labs", maybe they can help, but the costs would be massive.

doesn't this sound a little dramatic to be taken seriously. If it happened, well, shit, my heart goes out to the guy. BUT, why would you spend years and years on a project, never release a beta, never have testers, never mention anything about it until now. Sounds suss to me. But of course, I could just be a completely wrong cynical s.o.b.

I truly feel sympathy for you. This reminds me of my first hard drive crash 3 years ago. I lost *alot* of data, and it was one of the worst shocks I've ever received in my life. :| (maybe I shouldn't be saying this right now, but personaly I would not rely on any removable magnetic disk media. Too many mechanics involved, and too much that can go wrong)

That TC sounded fun too. Sorry about your loss. Zip disks? Wow, you asked for that to happen did you. Anything but zip disks. At least back it up to those virtual drivers.

Ah, man... Thursday is backup day? But I just back up yesterday...

Personally I've never had any problems with Zip disks. That little lifetime error-free warranty on all my disks has never been used. Of course, yesterday's backup was to a CD instead. Zip disks aren't really for storage anyway, they're for transfer. I mean, does anything fit on a 3 1/2"er anymore? Come on, even 100 MB is too small at times. Don't know much about superdisks except they're not standard enough to be of much use to me.

3-½" disks still pound away at the competition. I read about Iomega's troubles, and how their ZIP disks haven't caught on. It makes me laugh. They come out with this drive, solely produced for disks that cost $20 each, and they're wondering why it isn't successful.

It's because the disks are too expensive, you idiots!!!

Now, if ZIP disks had caught on a little better, then people would start paying for the disks.. But how many people actually own a ZIP drive?! You see, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has a 3-½" floppy drive. That's how it beats the competition so badly.. Iomega is such a joke of a company, it's entertaining..

... As for whether or not this guy sounds too dramatic for it to be true, it sounds a little dramatic to NOT be true to me!! I think he's sincere. If I found out he wasn't, it would be a load off my mind.. I really feel for this guy..

Am I the only one who backs up on cd's?

dont buy a cd burner JUST for backing up doom2 wads... look people... it is just a doom2 project, not fbi files.. make a new project then.

These guys know they have you over a barrel and will gouge you terribly. My boss had to fork over more than two grand to get her data back after the hard disk on the computer at work crashed and she found that all her tape backups were corrupted. Of course in this case it was actually worth it because the data was probably worth a hundred times that.

AndrewB, the beauty of the Iomega drive is that it doesn't only accept the $20 disks, but standard 3½" ones as well as they are physically the same size. I know, I have one and that was the main reason I bought it over a zip drive. I replaced my A drive with it and it works just great. Mind you, what would I know? I'm the guy who threw out his own TC on CD-ROM - Ken Benobi

Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups...

Before throwing out the zips,load 'em up on a MacIntosh Zip drive...I kid you not!As long as the Mac owner hasn't disabled "PCEXCHANGE" (a control panel that defaults to being,correctly,ENABLED),the MacIntosh can read PC zip disks (& floppies for that matter). The Mac can ALSO read all PC CDRoms,but thats another story. I own a PC,& a MacIntosh for my daughter.The point is,as the systems work so differently,often invisible,or corrupted,or system files that one platform can't see or read,well the other can. A disk ,a Zip ,that holds 94 meg,may "look empty",yet register as only 10 meg free...its all "still there"...get my point?!? Hell,if you don't know anyone with a MacIntosh Zip,as I have both,mail it to me,as I have both..you have nothing to lose... Thank you. Cordially, Eric Margolis ericjmz@home.com fax: (215) 884-6193

Oh sh*t. Here I am thinking people have learned from GLDoom (no, not DoomGL). That project was stopped after a HD crash. Anyway, since ZIPdisks are the least reliable medium I know, (and yes, that includes floppy disks...) I hope people realize that backups should be made on tape, high-quality cdrs or a RAID system. Or keep a lot of backups in different places (At home, at the office, at your site, at your parents).... that also works very good.

A RAID system? Is that a form of hard disk space less prone to crashing? 'Cause whenever I access cdrom.com, it says it's using ½-terabyte of RAID 5.

I find when you are programming and this happens you can recode the file you deleted very quickly... because you remember what you did before... I suggest the guy try it :)

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. A RAID consist of several normal hard disks but stores the data in a more or less sophisticated (depending on your point of view :) redundant way so that no data loss occurs if one disk crashes. You just replace the crashed disk and the RAID integrates the new disk in the whole process. If a second disk should crash before you replaced the first one you are in pretty deep shit, i.e. you loose your job / life / doom project or whatever is at stake...