[Dark Age Iron Savior]

Surprisingly, I am not dead.

Unsurprisingly, I need help again before I can make whatever kind of grand comeback strikes me at the moment.

My situation with my computer and viruses/malware reached a rather critical point at the end of February (or was it earlier? it seems like I've been gone longer than I thought). Basically at this point I'm going to move all the clean and critical non-executable files to a second drive and wipe the primary totally clean.

The thing that's holding me back, though, is that I'm deathly afraid of what I might destroy in the process.

Quite a few months back, I realized that I was missing some rather important documents of mine - not like game ideas or anything, but actual important stuff that it would devastate me to lose. I'm sure I should have these files somewhere, but I can't find them - and I've been trying to ignore this, because I honestly can't face a reality where they are gone forever. There are dozens of disks and CDs and a few old hard drives around the house that there is the most remote possibility they might be on, but I don't know where to begin looking, and so many things seem to be in unusable condition anymore.

Simply put, until I can verify that these files are no longer on the primary hard drive, I can't afford to wipe it. Even the slightest doubt that they might still be on there - even fragments of them - is enough to keep me from fixing my computer.

I already have Windows Grep to do good string searches, but I need two more things to really set my mind at ease (not that it ever is):

1. A comprehensive program that can find and search lost files - currently I have PC Inspector File Recovery, which seemed pretty good at recovering basic lost files (although for some reason it's stopped working on my corrupt drive partition on my second drive, possibly due to further corruption). However, it can't deal with real intense problem, and it can't search files like Windows Grep - something I figure it should be able to do, since they're still there, right?

So I need really good file recovery software to make sure I'm not missing anything.

2. I need a program that can scan large amounts of files and tell what type they are. You know, like if a .zip has been renamed a .zap, and Windows doesn't know what the hell anymore? I know about stuff like TrID, but I'm really hoping someone can name a program that can search a lot of files to tell what type they are originally - or if two different files have somehow been sandwiched together (like when someone hides a zip in an image file).

I honestly haven't the slightest clue as to what happened to these (I repeat, important) documents, and so I really don't know what to do to look for them. The idea that the only remaining copies of any of them may be on my hard drive when I'm about to wipe it honestly terrifies me.

Please help me if you can...and thank you for any help I can give. Once I do this I can hopefully fix my computer and come back and post some interesting things.

...

uh, if you can't help.....how have you been?



(on the positive side, I did get one email that made me very, very happy.)
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

actually, there are spare hard drives lying around, how many and why I'm not exactly sure. So truth be told, this particular crisis is more about my own insecurities and need to reuse materials than about conversation of finances. unfortunately, drama is the only language I talk.

if you guys really wanted to save up and buy me something, I would mind one of those special president-style health checkups they do at that one clinic. My whole family should be, what, $80,000?

I'm not sure what I'll do, but I have options. I was just hoping to explore some of them more thoroughly before I made my decision.

(I'd really like a mass file identifier, though)
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

hi james. sorry, I don't have any drama for you. bye james.

Toups, harddrive backup would be good, but I know very little about the process - can you do it in such a way that it preserves the "hidden" stuff too? Files I've somehow caused Windows to lose, deleted stuff, etc..

Toll, my family already has government assistance - social security programs for my grandmother, disability programs for my father. I don't think my family is exactly in a bad way - we're generally unhealthy, but none of us are about to keel over in the next week. But we also rely on each other very much - I'm pretty sure that if any of us was taken out of "the equation", things would pretty much fall apart.

It never occurred to me that you could run Linux off a CD, although that obviously makes sense. Is there some definitive livecd I can grab? I normally don't think I can handle other operating systems, but if it's stuck on that disc, unable to take over my computer and stir the files in a revolution against me, I think I'll be okay.

(also, what people like BenoitRen assume is my being an idiot who uses Windows is actually more that I'm an idiot who never remembers to turn on spyware or virus protection after I've turned it off for whatever reason)
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

trying the livecd thing right now - or liveusb, rather. Unfortunately, I can only seem to grab a 256mb stick right now, so I'm going to try the 4.2 version of PuppyLinux and see what it allows me. If there's any reasons for me to use an earlier/different version, please post them as soon as possible for the maximum amount of regret when I set my system on fire.
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