GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Tutorial for absent minded webmasters

iwantchixx · 05-11-2006, 09:49 PM

Terrified a hard drive may die on you? Have a bad habit of deleting work then 10 seconds later realizing you forgot to upload it? This tutorial is for you.

If you build a lot of websites, galleries, freesites, pages etc this process and these two tools will not only save time should the unthinkable happen but also stop significant others from thinking you are going to tear the house down in a mad fit.

Firstly, go to http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ and download 'eraser'. You are going to use this application for two reasons. One, to keep cluster tips and erased data blank on your drive. This helps keep your drive healthy as well as makes it easier to recover lost files should you need to. The less data noise left over on the drive when you accidentally erase important files the better the chance of recovery. We are in an industry that revolves around repetitive file names. Say we have a few galleries or sites full of pics named in ranges of 01.jpg to 1000.jpg and we do this daily, upload, then erase. After many times of doing this, trying to recover anything with those file names in it becomes difficult because the recovery programs are looking for any possible match and may truncate them all into one file that's not only unusable but sometimes unrecoverable.

Install it then open it. Go to "edit" .. preferences and choose erasing. In the "files tab choose # 2 with 7 passes. Make sure cluster tip area, file names and alternate data streams are all checked. Click the 'unused disk space' tab and choose #2 with 7 passes as well. Make sure Free Disk Space, Cluster tip area and directory entries is selected as well. Click ok.

Go back to edit, preferences and this time choose 'General'. Turn off al erasing reports, These are not needed, Do NOT allow the "Shell extension" option to be selected. it will freeze anyone's pc upon right click of any file if you have alternate window themes installed. Do enable background entropy polling. The clearing of page file at shut down is a personal choice. I keep mine checked for shits and giggles. Click ok.

On your windows drive go through C:\Documents and Settings\*user* and go into local settings as well as application data. Drag and drop EVERY unneeded folder in there. For firefox users just dump the "cache" folder itself because if you delete the entire directory structure leading to it you'll lose your profile. Drop temp folders, temp. internet folders, cookies, everything you can find that is a file that is added to/deleted/modified/subtracted from on a constant basis.

Once your unwanted documents and setting files and folders are all in the 'Eraser' pane right click an empty spot in eraser and select "new task". Do this for every hard drive you have. Choose "unused space on drive" and chose the hard drive letter. Click ok after each one. Right click the file list and select "Run all" This will take a few minutes to a few hours, maybe even overnight depending on how big your drives are and how much free space they have.

once your drive is clean. Enjoy your fresh drive for now and work away. Run this process once a week. You ca schedule these tasks in the program.

Now, here's where this is all leading up to.

You just accidentally deleted an entire folder before uploading (I've done this many times) and already cleared the recycle bin or you held the shift key while deleting (bypassing the recycle bin). Go to http://www.bitmart.net/r2k.shtml and purchase restore2000. The NTFS version WILL read FAT disk no problem. I tested it and it does. Install and run a scan. Then follow the directory structure to your old files you deleted. Right click them and recover to A DRIVE DID NOT CONTAIN THE FILE ORIGINALLY. This is very important so I will repeat. DO NOT RECOVER TO A DRIVE THAT ORIGINALLY CONTAINED THE FILE. You can even recover to a mass storage USB device such as an external hard drive or thumb drive.

This program will also help recover entire hard drives when the read head starts going flakey. I had an entire year worth of work on a hard drive and the read head crapped out. This drive was able to force reading it even though it took a couple days to grab all the data. It's an awesome program.

Anyways, I hope this tutorial comes in use for any of you should you ever have a hard drive failure or accidentally delete work. Worse case scenario you never have to deal with loosing work and you end up with a very clean hard drive that runs smoothly because there's no temp data clogging it up all the time.

05-11-2006, 09:49 PM
iwantchixx Too lazy to set a custom title Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: The Boonies Posts: 12,860	Tutorial for absent minded webmasters - file recovery Terrified a hard drive may die on you? Have a bad habit of deleting work then 10 seconds later realizing you forgot to upload it? This tutorial is for you. If you build a lot of websites, galleries, freesites, pages etc this process and these two tools will not only save time should the unthinkable happen but also stop significant others from thinking you are going to tear the house down in a mad fit. Firstly, go to http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ and download 'eraser'. You are going to use this application for two reasons. One, to keep cluster tips and erased data blank on your drive. This helps keep your drive healthy as well as makes it easier to recover lost files should you need to. The less data noise left over on the drive when you accidentally erase important files the better the chance of recovery. We are in an industry that revolves around repetitive file names. Say we have a few galleries or sites full of pics named in ranges of 01.jpg to 1000.jpg and we do this daily, upload, then erase. After many times of doing this, trying to recover anything with those file names in it becomes difficult because the recovery programs are looking for any possible match and may truncate them all into one file that's not only unusable but sometimes unrecoverable. Install it then open it. Go to "edit" .. preferences and choose erasing. In the "files tab choose # 2 with 7 passes. Make sure cluster tip area, file names and alternate data streams are all checked. Click the 'unused disk space' tab and choose #2 with 7 passes as well. Make sure Free Disk Space, Cluster tip area and directory entries is selected as well. Click ok. Go back to edit, preferences and this time choose 'General'. Turn off al erasing reports, These are not needed, Do NOT allow the "Shell extension" option to be selected. it will freeze anyone's pc upon right click of any file if you have alternate window themes installed. Do enable background entropy polling. The clearing of page file at shut down is a personal choice. I keep mine checked for shits and giggles. Click ok. On your windows drive go through C:\Documents and Settings\user and go into local settings as well as application data. Drag and drop EVERY unneeded folder in there. For firefox users just dump the "cache" folder itself because if you delete the entire directory structure leading to it you'll lose your profile. Drop temp folders, temp. internet folders, cookies, everything you can find that is a file that is added to/deleted/modified/subtracted from on a constant basis. Once your unwanted documents and setting files and folders are all in the 'Eraser' pane right click an empty spot in eraser and select "new task". Do this for every hard drive you have. Choose "unused space on drive" and chose the hard drive letter. Click ok after each one. Right click the file list and select "Run all" This will take a few minutes to a few hours, maybe even overnight depending on how big your drives are and how much free space they have. once your drive is clean. Enjoy your fresh drive for now and work away. Run this process once a week. You ca schedule these tasks in the program. Now, here's where this is all leading up to. You just accidentally deleted an entire folder before uploading (I've done this many times) and already cleared the recycle bin or you held the shift key while deleting (bypassing the recycle bin). Go to http://www.bitmart.net/r2k.shtml and purchase restore2000. The NTFS version WILL read FAT disk no problem. I tested it and it does. Install and run a scan. Then follow the directory structure to your old files you deleted. Right click them and recover to A DRIVE DID NOT CONTAIN THE FILE ORIGINALLY. This is very important so I will repeat. DO NOT RECOVER TO A DRIVE THAT ORIGINALLY CONTAINED THE FILE. You can even recover to a mass storage USB device such as an external hard drive or thumb drive. This program will also help recover entire hard drives when the read head starts going flakey. I had an entire year worth of work on a hard drive and the read head crapped out. This drive was able to force reading it even though it took a couple days to grab all the data. It's an awesome program. Anyways, I hope this tutorial comes in use for any of you should you ever have a hard drive failure or accidentally delete work. Worse case scenario you never have to deal with loosing work and you end up with a very clean hard drive that runs smoothly because there's no temp data clogging it up all the time.