A Curse on Jugurtha

A curse on the thief Jugurtha

ahmad-alfan@hotmail.fr

He is a thief with no honor.

What a chore!

I start out with a reformat and then load the XP - do a clean install. Then I start the process of updating.... 40 updates to get current!

Then I load my firewall, my antivirus and now - 10 hours later I am starting to add back the applications!

When is a Full Backup Restore going to work?

So at lunch I see a report saying that everything restored and I should restart my system.

When I do so it starts cycling, trying to reboot in safe mode, none of the modes work.

I put in the XP system and it tries to repair the installation. But it ain't gonna happen.

I try this a couple more times after work and nothing works! I am screwed.

Reboot, reformat, reinstall all software. All I can say is at least I have my data!

Christmas Night - Quest for BUMP 6.0

My daughter is on her flight home and we are back at it.

A quest to find at any cost a copy of version 6.0 BUMP (Backup MyPC).

I search the internet any thread remotely related. I see that Roxio is selling BUMP 2006 but it doesn't say what version it is and of course no one responds in support. It is Christmas after all, not that I would get a faster response if it was the middle of summer.

Finally I see a couple threads in the Sonic forum in Roxio Community that tend to indicate it might be version 6.0. Hell it is only $50 - let's give it a try.

So about 10pm I place my order via credit card. I am told I will get an email from Digital River with the download instructions. I wait and wait.... Nada.

I try searching Roxio Unsupport - can't get squat. Finally I head off to bed feeling truly beaten.

3am - I am wide awake, so let's check and see if my order has gone through. Nope -- I try searching on the order number, finally something I do kicks out an email to me and a download link.

I open it up and install the software. I fire it up - it looks the same! WOW it is version 6.0!!!

HOORAY!

I decide before I do anything else I just want to restore the data files - so I set it up for a restore and head back to bed...time check about 4:30.

Up for work at 7 I first check the computer and sure enough the files are out there - and I can see a lot of them, I can open them. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

So now that I got that to work. Lets do the full restore, reboot, and things will be back to normal like this week never happened.

WRONG! I set up the restore and when I come back from work at lunch I find....

Catch 22 or How Screwed Am I?

I open up my backup software - point it over to the backup - set it up to do a full restore and what do I get?

Every file returns with: Compression Information Mismatch [4886 1316] error message.

How screwed can you get? Let's search the internet on that message and find out. Oh my, I am screwed indeed.

So I am trying to restore with version 4.85. Luckily I printed the log file and see that I need version 6.0 to be on the one that created the file. I deduce that some how there is a difference in the algorithm that was used to compress those files. But I see lots of grief about other screwed people that had compression turned on when they created the backup.... let's see did I have compression on?

Well of course I did.

But it appears to me that maybe just maybe if I can find a copy of version 6.0 I might be able to restore these files.

So I start searching the internet for anything I can find on Stomp BUMP 6.0 and darned if I can find anything that will help. Did I mention it is Christmas Eve and my daughter flew 500 miles to visit?

Finally I resolve myself that nothing is going to happen until after Christmas so I post some messages on various forums asking people if they know where I can find a 6.0 version. And I try to put it all aside and enjoy what little time is left of my daughter's visit.

Oh the pain of it all. A year's worth of all my financial and tax records locked up in a file that I can't access. Maybe I can get it back from one of those hard disk recovery companies....

Maybe Santa will twitch his nose and this will all go away.

Some things go well some don't!

So the installation is on. And it goes well. I hook the cable up, plug it in and boot up.

Format the drive to NTFS and install XP. Life is good.

I log in, can see those backup files -- FullBackup.qic

I am excited. I find my Stomp Backup MyPC original disk and install the software.

I check for updates and --- hmmm where did those updates go? What company is this anyway? Someone bought Stomp and .... hmmm

Oh well, lets just use this version to restore those files.

That is when I discovered a cardinal rule. NEVER UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE ON-LINE UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY MAKE AN OFFLINE COPY OF THAT UPDATE!

Words to live by.

Moments of Truth - 7 am at Circuit City

Well ok - really was 8 am - I managed to get back to sleep for a couple hours.

8a.m. at Circuit City in my area is a trip. Staff is everywhere...customers are nowhere to be seen. I have them all to myself. Bernanke at the Federal Reserve will not be happy about this but I AM!

I walk up to the check stand - pull out the box and receipt and start into a spiel I have been rehearsing for the last three hours in my sleep explaining how it isn't might fault I didn't know it wasn't going to work with my motherboard.

I am half way into the spiel when I realize she is processing the refund and I look at the clerk and say "you really don't care do you?" She smiles and say nope, refund or exchange?

So I run over to the counter and find the exact same drive but in IEDE. Head back to the counter and it turns out it is a straight across trade.

So I am pumped. I can get home, install this drive and have my system restoring before my daughter is even up for breakfast.

But I didn't yet understand how screwed I was!