And so it comes to an end...

[I.Brattin]

And it looks like everything has come to an end. It appears all of the files for all of my ages that I have been working, including textures and models has completely vanished into thin air. Everything is gone; even Aquh, Yaeviev, Taygahn, Chamassa's files.

And I believe I know exactly how it happened, I was reinstalling Java (having problems with Drizzle), though I doubt that Java deleted them though it is a big coincidence, and I noticed something disappeared off my desktop. I didn't think too much of it at the time. Just now I went to looking for my age stuff intending to work on Chamassa a little before bed, and found it all missing.

Some of the stuff is sitting in 3DS Max 2009 export directory but there is a lot that is completely gone. The Library building is completely gone. Only place the model for it existed was in the directory that has vanished.

[kaelisebonrai]

hms. I... might be able to give you a.. vague "help". maybe. you'll probably need to do some "manual" fixes, but, i could probably use the pyprp importer i have on my home harddrive to at least get you some stuff back. =/

EDIT: well, at least the stuff you have .prps of =P

[I.Brattin]

I don't even have the prp's. The only prp's available are on Drizzle. Chamassa I was near version 3 of and Drizzle has version 2.5. Aquh I was working on version 4 and Drizzle has version 3. There is a chance a copy of Yaeviev is on my server. Taygahn there is no prp's anywhere, period it's gone...

[kaelisebonrai]

ouch =/

I'm not sure what could've happened, sadly, but, it sounds like you're having some odd computer issues, again... =/

on the bizarre off-chance of hope, try sifting through the... actually. i have an idea.

Blender has an... interesting tendency to drop random .blends into C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp
there's only a small chance the one you want will be in there, but, you can hope. =)

good luck!

[Aloys]

Ouch indeed.. Loosing stuff really hurts.
I know it's too late for that today but: Make Back-ups.
CDs (or DVDs) are dirt cheap. And if you don't have a CD burner USB Keys are very cheap too. If you have important things, keep back-ups outside of your usual hard-drive. Most of the time it looks useless, but the day you will need them you will be really happy to have them.
Several years ago my main HD died, and I lost several years of documents. And not only Myst/Uru stuff, but very important documents and photos too. Everything; nearly 150gigas of files and no back-ups. Since that day you can bet I make regular back-ups..

[tachzusamm]

Not sure if you already know this, but files which are deleted under Windows are not really erased from the Harddisk.
First, they will be "unlinked" from the directory system - and after a while, when the storage space is needed, data is overwritten. Not immediately.

There is a really good tool which will be able to restore most of your files. I used this tool in the past, and it really worked well.

It's called "GetDataBack", and it absolutely does what the name promises - assumed you did not fill the now free space with other stuff, so AVOID installing software or copying data onto your drive, until you recovered the unlinked data - or until you decided to really want to lose those files.

http://www.runtime.org/index.html

[Wutt Evah]

Oww is right! I empathize with you.
I've had things disapear before, and a couple HD failures. Don't know if it applies, but in some cases unless you have reinstalled windows, System Restore has helped me recover lost files. Usually when I have installed a bunch of stuff and goofed up my system.
I never install, or store much of anything on C: drive anymore except "Windoze" in case it funks up. The rest goes on an external drive just incase. I know losing stuff can be like starting your whole life over again.

Good luck, I hope you find an answer

[ZURI]

You might consider trying Recuva. Last week, I had a "mystery" crash similar to what you've described. Unfortunately, I lost pretty much everything that wasn't backed-up offsite. What I was able to recover, I got back using that program.

It's pretty much your stereotypical low-level scan software. It operates similar to other recovery programs I've used in the past (unfortunately with simliar results). I was able to recover almost a gig of lost textures with this - so perhaps it will help you as well.

Good luck to you. I assure you - I feel your pain.

Edited" Ooops, I was skimming and didn't realize there were other software packages recommended. Oh well, the more the merrier.

[I.Brattin]

Blender has an... interesting tendency to drop random .blends into C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp
there's only a small chance the one you want will be in there, but, you can hope. =)

The only backups would have been of Chamassa. Aquh, Yaeviev, and Taygahn wouldn't be. They haven't been worked on in a while. Still with the fact that most of the textures were gone also, it would have meant painstakingly replacing them.

You might consider trying Recuva. Last week, I had a "mystery" crash similar to what you've described. Unfortunately, I lost pretty much everything that wasn't backed-up offsite. What I was able to recover, I got back using that program.

Tried Recuva, got a lot of the textures back, some of the 3DS Max models that resided in that directory as well. But No Blend files, or any of the other models, or even any of the tools I had (such as plasmashop and elfviewer). Most of it is still missing in action.

It's called "GetDataBack", and it absolutely does what the name promises - assumed you did not fill the now free space with other stuff, so AVOID installing software or copying data onto your drive, until you recovered the unlinked data - or until you decided to really want to lose those files.

http://www.runtime.org/index.html

Trying GetDataBack, now.

[I.Brattin]

Boy I lucked out. GetDataBack did and didn't find it. It appears it was never deleted. It was moved to a folder I never moved it to. I found it when I noticed GetDataBack had a search feature so I put in *.blend into the search and hit enter, it started searching for blend files and then boom there it was. Just to be on the safe side I am backing it up to my external HD right now.