Grab your torches and pitchforks · 12:23am May 26th, 2016
Alright guys I got some sad news
I tried to upload the latest chapter of A2 last night.
And all the sudden my computer took a massive apocalyptic shit on me and crashed and burned.
So as of right now that's all of chapter 17 and some of 18, some 20,000+ words all down the pipes.
As in, gone.
So...
Luckily I sent off a very early copy to a friend and he managed to find it and save a few thousand words.
But that's still months of work lost. I don't have a lot of time to write as it is, so thats pretty devastating.
I'm still trying to fix my computer, there is a chance it might be saved. But I'm pretty close to cutting my losses.
So thats the bad, news
The "good" news is it's all already written and re-writing it shouldn't take nearly half as long as it did to write it from scratch. But still expect nothing anytime soon. Unless by some miracle my dumbass figures out how to fix my laptop.
Sorry guys. If any of you are computer geniuses I'd love a PM maybe you could save it. Because I have about as much chance of fixing this things as team of untrained wolves.
I've already tried hitting it and yelling at it and now I'm just about out of ideas.
What did you write them in? Some word processors store temporary files that you might be able to recover.
Oh, yikes; sorry about that. Good luck.
As long as the hard drive isn't damaged, it can be recovered.
Tell me in detail what happened, and I'll give you some advice.
I'm on my phone, just send me a PM. I've worked many different positions in IT.
I'm so paranoid about these things. I use Google drive for the majority of my work but save local copies on my computers and an external hard drive because this kind of thing scares the carp out of me.
Good luck, sir!
3972508
Well, at least it makes the carp happy. That's really no kind of place to be for a fish.
3972507
Okay so everything went "Not Responding"
and i tried to restart it and now the boot sequence keeps failing. I tried resetting in safe mode, all that shit.
I also tried resetting to an earlier version but that failed too.
I fucked with it for awhile and I sprinkled some Copenhagen in the CD tray. It seemed to like it.
Right now it's attempting to repair disk errors. It says it might take a few hours.
Also I may have pistol whipped it a few times.
3972517
I've got a compsci degree and some experience in data recovery, so if you give me more information, I might be able to give some advice. I need some more information about what's going on first, though.
What kind of system were you running?
What kind of failure occurred? Is it hardware or software?
What kind of file system is your hard drive?
What kind of word processor are you using?
Do you have access to a secondary computer with a DVD burner?
Are you tech savvy enough to use a Linux rescue DVD if I told you how and do you know how to boot it?
3972517 unfortunately that doesn't exactly bode well if the file system is fubar'd.
If it doesn't succeed, there are a few things to try.
You can take the hard drive out and plug it into another one, or get a system recovery disk and try booting from that. Let me know if it recovers itself or not.
I'll walk you through the next recovery steps.
3972532
3972517
Also is your boot drive separate from your hard drive, if so you can probably just pop out the hard drive and plug it into another computer to get all your files.
3972542
It's good practice, no doubt. A lot of notebooks don't really offer that option, though. Best you can do is have a separate boot partition on those, most of the time. Doesn't bode well in case of a head crash or something like that. Since the system boots at all, even if it complains, it is at least probably not that.
3972542
okay I broke open the laptop.
There's lots of little chips and bits everywhere and i don't know which one the hard drive is.
3972555
...Jesus fuck. Please, put everything down and DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ANYTHING until you've had a night of sleep to calm down. Seriously, you're gonna break everything that's left like that.
Just take your time.
3972555 Not sure if trolling or serious.
38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0y1xg6o3k1qbb77eo1_500.gif
3972567
2static3.fjcdn.com/comments/Blank+_eb3d240a1cd44f1e94c6d758fe35e8a9.jpg
Alright I shot the laptop.
now what
3972607
Get drunk and prepare for hatemail.
G-freaking Docs.
Google Docs is probably your best friend for writing, hands down.
it saves both to a cloud and your hard drive, editors can work on it without you having to ship the file back and forth, hell they can follow behind you can correct typos as you make them if you want, they can make notes about certain areas that need something more than simple corrections.
Like I said at CANterlot's fan fiction panel, something like google docs is a vital tool and should not be overlooked, even if you don't use it as a tool for your editors it's usefulness in ensuring your work isn't lost cannot be overstated.
3972616
2static3.fjcdn.com/comments/Blank+_df64c2048ef4e50180d4cf4a91e495eb.jpg
roger that
Alternatively, if the hardware of the laptop itself works fine and its just windows being corrupted (and not the main partition where you keep your files) you should be able to use another computer to create a Linux or Ubuntu boot USB stick.
Then just boot up your laptop from that stick, open file browser and just navigate to your HDD, find your most important files and copy them out to another thumbdrive or something
3972646
Also, imgur has blacklisted this site. None of those links work.
At any rate, feel free to hit me up about that system info. So long as the hard drive is physically intact, I should be able to walk you through saving most of it. That kind of thing happens to me practically every other weekend, the way I ride my systems. I do genuinely need to know all of that, though.
I'm just going to cling onto the hope that you are trolling us until I can't anymore...
3972657 I can see the pics just fine.
3972766
Huh. That's strange. I can't. There was actually a PSA about that here, Imgur has specifically blacklisted Fimfic from ever hosting its images there again. Are you using some browser extension that messes with referrers?
3972781 Nope. I honestly think the problem is on your end. And I just copy pasted the image dress and I don't think they are hosted on Imgur.
http://2static3.fjcdn.com/comments/Blank+_df64c2048ef4e50180d4cf4a91e495eb.jpg
3972808
No, there genuinely was a site blog post by the staff about it. I would link it, if I could remember the name. A lot of people have noticed this and it's pretty much universal. I guess you're just special.
Just happy you're still working on it.
3972813 When I click the image link it takes me to funnyjunk.
3972823
Oh, nevermind then. It was Imgur links before. Muppetz edited it when I mentioned the Imgur ban.
3972813 3972808
It's probably on your end, wlam.
A) Imgur blocks FiMfic links if it can tell you're linking it from FiMfic. A ton of privacy plugins can unblock it by lying to imgur about where the picture is being linked from. (I can see imgur pics here just fine).
B) Those images are from Funnyjunk, not imgur. A bunch of privacy plugins, adblockers, etc. have Funnyjunk blacklisted by default, because the site (used to be?) a fucking virus-magnet. (I had to specifically unblock the Funnyjunk image servers to see those.)
EDIT: or Muppetz moved the images. That works too.
3972781 I can also see the images. According to my browser the images are being hosted on funny junk not Imgur.
3972646 If you live in the south central Wisconsin area I'd be willing to recover the files manually for free.
It seems like every author on this site has been dealing with total computer failure of late. Weird.
Best of luck to you on this, and don't worry if you have to make us wait a little longer for the next chapter. We will wait.
3972828
I fixed it
Option 1) go buy an external drive and go to Fry's or equivalent and ask for data recovery/transfer. Wont fix your computer but will at least give you a shot at the files
Option 2) go buy an external case and swap the HD into it and buy a new internal hd. There are online guides on how to install. Then profit.
Option 3) Soldering Iron, nerves of steel and a prayer
Option 4) Drink some more, switch to GDocs.
Option 5) See option 1
3972874
This is pretty much your only set of options, and depending on the computer issue, may require a second computer.
Me personally? never trust windows. I use linux for everything.
I've been using Google Docs to write everything, then copy/pasting those docs onto a word document to save on my computer as a failsafe. Just a habit I've gotten into that has saved me for the first time recently with an essay.
Oh god, that's fucking TERRIBLE news!
On the plus side, I thought you quit the story, so... good that you're still writing. All my other favorite writers just sorta ran out of steam about a year ago.
use google drive
chances are that it won't shit on you
At this point you should really try taking it in to a location that is able to do data recovery.
GODAMMIT NAPPAAAA!
I love how you are getting more tech support than the CIA gets to speed up the time we get more horse words from you.
....Omg I'll pay for tickets for you guys to fly out to his house!! Must. Have. MORE. HORSE WORDS!!! 
Update
No dice on the recovery. Pretty sure its beyond fucked.
So right now Im at least hoping to be able to recover the files from the old laptop to my other laptop.
Any ideas?
GDocs.
GDrive.
That is all.
3972874 Adding to this, Recuva is a tool that's saved my ass in the past. Hopefully the drive that crapped out on you has not been in use since it derped out. The fewer writes made to the hard drive since data loss, the better the chance of recovery becomes. Good luck on the salvaging.
Laptops suck - reason being they give a ton fewer options when it comes to hardware. My first feeling is trying to mount the HDD to another computer with the same general format type and pray it's not a physical scratch across the entire platter (or the solid state chips' melted). Might be able to mount it as a secondary drive and pull info off of it even if you can't boot from the fucking thing. But, again, laptops suck and your older one might not be able to A) mount the same type of drive, B) mount a second drive altogether, C) recognize the drive, or D) be able to count above 10. And laptops are as bad as cell phones to get into. A computer toolkit from Microcenter will get you into it most of the time (unless it's Torx ...). Try to search for 'replace hard drive *laptop name here*' on Google and see if anyone at least shows you how to remove the thing for safe keeping.
Or you could beg your computer specialist for help. Bribe him with very good scotch.
3973121 ...have you tried turning it on and off again?
In a seriousness this is some shitty news. But, uh, plenty of fish in the sea, and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
3973121
take the pc to a tech support guy, usually they have a device that lets them copy the hard drive to a external storage, it'll cost, but everything should be completely recovered.
3973121 Here's a thread about connecting a laptop hard drive to another laptop.
Looks like either buying one of these SATA to USB ports is an option. Looks like prices for those range from $5-15 bucks.
Or you can find a friend with a desktop computer. Those typically have multiple SATA cables inside, and then you won't have to go out of your way to buy things you'll hopefully only use once.
Or you can re-write the story from memory.
PS: A dramatic retelling of how you shot your laptop.
Ohh that sucks. Still, it works out for me on my end, because I have yet to read the most recent chapter. Haven't had time to sit down and read it. x3
What fucking timing, man. This is why I make backups, and make backups of my backups. And then put those backups of backups onto separate drives and sticks. Shit always goes wrong at the most inconvenient of times.
Wow, that's just beyond shitty. Perfect example why I do everything in GDocs.
Update
Now no one get excited or it'll jinx it....but I think I just may have fixed it...