Help, threw myself into computer hell!
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Help, threw myself into computer hell!
How can I copy all my preferences over? All I have is the files themselves and my main focus is Mozilla Firefox(currently the BETA) and the latest thunderbird. Most of my emails are still on the email server(remote) but the ones I organized into folders are on my computer. Is there any way to retreive them?
Long story short I have 2 copies of XP on my server/workstation. The old copy was never used and just left so I could grab files as I needed them. Lately I've needed more space so I wiped EVERYTHING off the old xp's partiiton. I was lazy and just did it the tradiitonal select & delete way.
I guess the two versions were tied together some what. my sound quite working so I reinstalled the drivers. With that I needed to restart and now the computer won't boot... So I resinstalled windows from where I deleted it. But now I can only get on the fresh copy of windows!
So from here I've decided I'm going to copy everything onto an external HD, completely wipe the computer. Then install a brand new copy of Windows Server 2003 that I got from DreamSpark.
Long story short I have 2 copies of XP on my server/workstation. The old copy was never used and just left so I could grab files as I needed them. Lately I've needed more space so I wiped EVERYTHING off the old xp's partiiton. I was lazy and just did it the tradiitonal select & delete way.
I guess the two versions were tied together some what. my sound quite working so I reinstalled the drivers. With that I needed to restart and now the computer won't boot... So I resinstalled windows from where I deleted it. But now I can only get on the fresh copy of windows!
So from here I've decided I'm going to copy everything onto an external HD, completely wipe the computer. Then install a brand new copy of Windows Server 2003 that I got from DreamSpark.
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Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
Your question is vague but in general the more stuff you've done after you've lost what you want the harder or more impossible your goal will become. Programs like BadCopy will scan the data portions of your hard drive and attempt to find old files that are no longer listed on your hard drive's fat. Of course when files disappear from your drive's fat nothing will prevent the drive from overwriting the old data.
I keep my system's settings files such as the XP user registry, Firefox profiles, etc as a copy on a second raid and on an external USB I use for backup purposes. Manually backing up your data may be a pain but recreating all those settings from scratch will always be ten times more time consuming if you don't.
I keep my system's settings files such as the XP user registry, Firefox profiles, etc as a copy on a second raid and on an external USB I use for backup purposes. Manually backing up your data may be a pain but recreating all those settings from scratch will always be ten times more time consuming if you don't.
Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
Thats the thing. I do still have everything. When my computer restarted it simply wouldn't start up using the copy of windows I normally use. So I can't backup everything through the software. But I do still have all of the files. Everything is fine in that sense. The computer was fine before I tried restarting it.
I need to find a way to get my data out of the saved files on my computer for:
1) Mozilla Firefox
2) Thunderbird(a lot of my emails were stored in separate folders off of my email server)
3) MySQL (A big one)
I've purchased webhosting already and would like to transfer all of my mysql tables over to the new hosting. The only problem is I can't figure out how to extract the information from the files in my servers MySQL folder.
The plan right now is to not bother trying to fix the copy of windows so it boots up. I figure I will copy everything over to an external HD, then wipe the computer. Repartition to make everything all nice and pretty again. Then install a fresh copy of Windows Server 2003 that I got from DreamSpark. Anyone see anything wrong with this plan? Am I going to need to boot windows for anything in particular? I'm sure my local computer place could get this fixed but I don't think it will be worth it. The damage is already done.
I need to find a way to get my data out of the saved files on my computer for:
1) Mozilla Firefox
2) Thunderbird(a lot of my emails were stored in separate folders off of my email server)
3) MySQL (A big one)
I've purchased webhosting already and would like to transfer all of my mysql tables over to the new hosting. The only problem is I can't figure out how to extract the information from the files in my servers MySQL folder.
The plan right now is to not bother trying to fix the copy of windows so it boots up. I figure I will copy everything over to an external HD, then wipe the computer. Repartition to make everything all nice and pretty again. Then install a fresh copy of Windows Server 2003 that I got from DreamSpark. Anyone see anything wrong with this plan? Am I going to need to boot windows for anything in particular? I'm sure my local computer place could get this fixed but I don't think it will be worth it. The damage is already done.
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Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
Reinstall Windows without formatting the drive then.
If you can't use a different drive then the one with your data and install Windows to that drive instead.
If you don't have a spare hard drive I highly recommend setting up a raid 1 to prevent hard drive failure from taking away all your data. With drives as cheap as they are these days you could setup a raid 1 with a dedicated raid controller for well under $300 for decent capacity. Plus you'd have your work on a SEPARATE hard drive from your OS as it should be!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=
...or in the very least boot Windows from your C:\ and have all your files on a single D:\ (non-raid). There just is no excuse when you're doing more then messing around with code.
If you can't use a different drive then the one with your data and install Windows to that drive instead.
If you don't have a spare hard drive I highly recommend setting up a raid 1 to prevent hard drive failure from taking away all your data. With drives as cheap as they are these days you could setup a raid 1 with a dedicated raid controller for well under $300 for decent capacity. Plus you'd have your work on a SEPARATE hard drive from your OS as it should be!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=
...or in the very least boot Windows from your C:\ and have all your files on a single D:\ (non-raid). There just is no excuse when you're doing more then messing around with code.
Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
Thats the thing. I have C partition which was the one I deleted. D drive was the one I normally used. D drive is still fine other then windows on d drive can't find the files to boot up. I guess it was using files from C drive. So I decided to try and reinstall windows on C drive to try and fix it. I wasn't that lucky. It reinstalled fine and I'm using c drive fine. But I can't access any of my software.
I started up my MySQL server while on C Drive (the server software is still on D). It won't load any of the databases or anything though.
I started up my MySQL server while on C Drive (the server software is still on D). It won't load any of the databases or anything though.
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Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
Yeah uh, I would only partition a drive if my life depended on it. Windows can be enough of a pain to begin with but adding partitions only complicates matters.
When you partition a single physical drive in to two letters you can not correctly refer to each letter as a drive, only a partition; they are both part of the same drive. So a drive and a drive letter are therefor not the same thing. If that drive physically dies and you loose both drive letters/partitions.
I'm standing by my suggestion to run a minimal of two separate drives each with their own drive letter: C:\ and D:\. If you goof up Windows you shouldn't sweat it if you have everything saved to the D:\. I change the My Documents folder in XP to the D:\. Vista (being the anti-design OS that it is) only allows you to change individual folder. Pure genius considering for example that you are more unlikely to save your saved game files from games in example should Vista bite the dust. I'm not sure about 2003. Right click on the My Documents folder, choose properties, and you can find out though.
Any way if you buy a cheap low-capacity hard drive for Windows you shouldn't have to worry about loosing your data on your current drive. I seriously don't see how anyone half serious about doing work on their computer could live without a second drive unless you manually back everything up a bare minimum of once a week.
When you partition a single physical drive in to two letters you can not correctly refer to each letter as a drive, only a partition; they are both part of the same drive. So a drive and a drive letter are therefor not the same thing. If that drive physically dies and you loose both drive letters/partitions.
I'm standing by my suggestion to run a minimal of two separate drives each with their own drive letter: C:\ and D:\. If you goof up Windows you shouldn't sweat it if you have everything saved to the D:\. I change the My Documents folder in XP to the D:\. Vista (being the anti-design OS that it is) only allows you to change individual folder. Pure genius considering for example that you are more unlikely to save your saved game files from games in example should Vista bite the dust. I'm not sure about 2003. Right click on the My Documents folder, choose properties, and you can find out though.
Any way if you buy a cheap low-capacity hard drive for Windows you shouldn't have to worry about loosing your data on your current drive. I seriously don't see how anyone half serious about doing work on their computer could live without a second drive unless you manually back everything up a bare minimum of once a week.
Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
I do have all the data though. That isn't a problem. The only problem is the format the data is in. When I move emails in thunderbird they are deleted from my mail server and stored on my computer. How can I access these without being able to startup thunderbird? What about MySQL? I can live without thunderbird's emails but losing my recent mysql database would mean a lot of work because I would have to check back to find out what was lost.
Other then that this server is being converted into just a backup server right away here. I've wired up a CAT6e network at my house here and my dad runs a home office. So he's getting me to switch my server over to be a backup/testing server. My server will also be relaying the backups to my offsite FTP host.
The only problem is getting my mysql database extracted though. I have the files I just don't have an SQL dump from them. The plan is to wipe the computer and reinstall windows server 2003 on it. I've already backed up my files onto an external HD. I'm guessing I might aswell just wipe the computer and get going on a new setup since it isn't worht trying to restore the computer?
Other then that this server is being converted into just a backup server right away here. I've wired up a CAT6e network at my house here and my dad runs a home office. So he's getting me to switch my server over to be a backup/testing server. My server will also be relaying the backups to my offsite FTP host.
The only problem is getting my mysql database extracted though. I have the files I just don't have an SQL dump from them. The plan is to wipe the computer and reinstall windows server 2003 on it. I've already backed up my files onto an external HD. I'm guessing I might aswell just wipe the computer and get going on a new setup since it isn't worht trying to restore the computer?
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Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
I would think there should be an option to *not* delete the server copy of emails when you check check your email using Thunderbird, not sure where it would be if it does exist however. If you're not sure where Thunderbird saves your email files locally on your computer then I highly recommend making an inquiry about it on the Thunderbird support forums along with what version of Thunderbird you are/were last using.
With my experience in MySQL you can pretty much just make a copy of the data folder that is within the mysql folder. Then just stop MySQL (if it's running) on the server you're importing the data to, just copy the data folder, and restart MySQL. It's pretty simple and I've had no problems though it doesn't mean you can't run in to problems.
I'm not sure if I covered enough of your questions but I get almost instant email notifications of thread replies so if you're crystal clear about what you'd prefer to do it would be easier to give you more articulate directions.
Good luck!
With my experience in MySQL you can pretty much just make a copy of the data folder that is within the mysql folder. Then just stop MySQL (if it's running) on the server you're importing the data to, just copy the data folder, and restart MySQL. It's pretty simple and I've had no problems though it doesn't mean you can't run in to problems.
I'm not sure if I covered enough of your questions but I get almost instant email notifications of thread replies so if you're crystal clear about what you'd prefer to do it would be easier to give you more articulate directions.
Good luck!
Re: Help, threw myself into computer hell!
I'm sure Thunderbird keeps the mails in some profile folder, which you can just copy. I've moved Thunderbird data several times, even between Windows and OS X without problems.