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Not saying it's because of Open Rails Testing, but... Rate Topic: -----

#1 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 19 May 2020 - 07:13 AM

Last Thursday, I opened OR Testing Version to run an activity.....I notice that an update was available so I clicked to do the update. about 2 minutes into the update, there was a power issue and my computer rebooted.. When I got back to OR, or more specifically tried to get back to open rails I was denied. "could not find the file", so I opened file explorer and went to the F: drive where open rails is loaded, and which ever directory I clicked on, the system would crash. When I rebooted this time, it asked me to do a "CHKDSK" on the F: drive. Which failed because it said it was in a "RAW" state and could not access file structure. Only the F: Drive was affected, the others are fine. I downloaded a program called M3 Data Recovery and tried to "fix" the "raw" drive. After 64 hours, the system rebooted. the chkdsk message did not appear. I'm now trying to recover all the files on the F: Drive. Hopefully that will finish sometime today, so I can reformat the F: Drive.

Is this an artifact of a "failed" update??? I'm not blaming OR, but it's suspicious.

#2 User is offline   ckawahara 

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Posted 19 May 2020 - 07:26 AM

My guess would be the file system. It probably was being written to, and when the power issue hit it, it created some type of issue with the file allocation table. I have my pc's equipped with uninterruptable power backup's.

#3 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 19 May 2020 - 07:51 AM

 ckawahara, on 19 May 2020 - 07:26 AM, said:

My guess would be the file system. It probably was being written to, and when the power issue hit it, it created some type of issue with the file allocation table. I have my pc's equipped with uninterruptable power backup's.


so do I, that's what burped....I'm checking that also...

#4 User is offline   P Escue 

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Posted 20 May 2020 - 08:27 AM

Having a disk go to a raw state means something has happen to cause the Operating System to not recognize the file system on the disk. There are a variety of reason this can happen. First, the files or the upgrade of OR were probably not your problem, unless they had a virus. Since it, happen during a power issue, this mostly the source of the problem. There are several things that could have happen, the disk could have a bad sectors that it was trying to write to or the File System was corrupted. The best bet is the file system structure was damaging during a write when the power was lost. It just happen that the writes were from the upgrade. It could have been any write that was modifying the file structure.

It sounds like you are now recovering files and I hope you are successful, so let’s now talk about how to keep this from causing problems in the future. There is always a problem with losing file or even the whole computer at any time. What is important is what is on the computer. Computers can be replaces, but files are a lot harder to replace. First, power, as ckawahara said above, sounds like you need a UPS to keep the system up. You don’t need a big one that will let you have the system up for days, but one designed for office uses should work fine. They are not that expensive. The idea is when you have a loss of power, but have enough time to complete something and bring the system down nicely, say maybe a 10 or more minutes. If you have a UPS, and lost power, then you need to replace the battery. Like anything with a batteries, the battery doesn’t last forever. Next, and probably more important, you need to back up your files to another device. This could be cloud storage or an external drive. Backups can help in many issues, from losing a system to power issues, to accidental deletes, to ransomware. Computer people are very anal about backups because we are the ones that have to fix the mess afterwards. The question you have to ask yourself is how much is your files worth to yourself.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful and that you are able to get all your files back.

#5 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 20 May 2020 - 09:40 AM

I suspect it was corrupted during the write when the power fluctuation happened. I have been able to recover all the files. (took about 70 hours) and have now replaced the drive because it would not format or anything.

I always have several copies of data files on multiple disks including external hd. The executable files will be reinstalled...i.e. open rails testing.

I'm not a big cloud advocate. I was in the military for 11 years and then worked as a DOD contractor for over 30 years. The military and DOD has bought into the cloud as a means to "save" money. My issue is a security one. having all your eggs in one basket is dangerous. also, a lot of places where our military deploys the infrastructure will not support unfettered access to the cloud therefore we have to provide our own infrastructure to support our troops. In some cases we (the US) is still supporting improved infrastructures in many middle-east countries that benefit our forces but local populations also.

Anyway....I'm not a big Cloud guy. we went from large mainframe computers...to distributed computing...and now we are circling back to "large mainframes" in terms of the cloud.

rant over...back to lurking

#6 User is offline   P Escue 

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Posted 20 May 2020 - 01:25 PM

I will not argue about security and the cloud. Don’t get me started on the cloud, I’m not a big fan, but for some people that what they want. An external drive can be picked up for under $100.00 depending on the size. If you have a USB 3.0 or 3.1 port go with a drive that can handle it (you will get better performance). Just get the highest version your USB port will support. If you don’t like all your eggs in one basket, then you should do backups.

The drive may not be physically damage. You should be able to re-format the drive. After re-format, check for bad sectors. One way to check for bad sectors is to go to File Explorer, picking the drive you want to scan on the right side, right click it and select Properties, select Tools, the select Check Now or it may be just Check, depends on the version of Windows. It may want a reboot to do the scan. If the disk drive is old (disk drive have an average life of about 5 years) or you don’t trust it, then replace it or use it for non-important files.

The important thing is to do backups.

#7 User is offline   steved 

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Posted 20 May 2020 - 01:54 PM

About twice a year I'll fire up Speedfan just to look around and check the conditions of my drives.
It accesses the SMART system which keeps track of the firmware that controls the drive.
In the 10 years or so I've been using it it's warned me three separate times about three drives.
I just went ahead and replaced them with a newer bigger drive. Couple of them were pretty old, bout time.
I got my first computer around 1996, I've been lucky I guess, I've never lost data.
Probably shouldn't have said that part out loud.

Best of luck
Steve





#8 User is offline   Amtrak115 

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Posted 21 May 2020 - 09:57 AM

 P Escue, on 20 May 2020 - 01:25 PM, said:

You should be able to re-format the drive.

It would not format. replaced the disk and restored from external drive was successful. Ran two simulations sessions for a total of about 6 hours. everything worked. So I'm back up.... Thanks for all the advice

#9 User is offline   ckawahara 

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Posted 21 May 2020 - 10:06 AM

 Amtrak115, on 21 May 2020 - 09:57 AM, said:

It would not format. replaced the disk and restored from external drive was successful. Ran two simulations sessions for a total of about 6 hours. everything worked. So I'm back up.... Thanks for all the advice


May be a list cayse, but depending upon the manufacturer, there maybe a utility that may examine he drive. Maybe a mfgr's low level reset may help.

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