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My first problem is I bough an eMachine

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RTSDaddy2:

Moderators, I'm quite sure I have this in the wrong place - move as needed.

When we got ready to install a computer in our arcade machine, Best Buy had a relatively inexpensive eMachine available. Now, I'd heard both good and bad about them, and decided to take a chance.

For a while, all was well.  Then this summer, the little thing caught a virus or something, and I had to reboot. No really big deal, it made a backup of all my files....and all was lovely again.

About two weeks ago, for unknown reasons, it quit working again....I could get no pic on the arcade.  Thinking no major problems, I hooked it up to our smaller monitor where our business PC, and found that - sure enough - a boot file was missing. So, I did the usual reboot procedure and (STUPIDLY) let it save to "My Backup" (I cannot recall seeing a way to change the directory or filename)  and let Windows reboot fully.

It fixed my problem, all right, and created a catastrophe in the process. All the files in the backup folder, including the backup folder from 7-2009 are gone.  I have lost all the work I put in to our Arcade Jukebox, my movies created with Pinnacle Studio 10, including my dad's funeral (mercifully that was burned to disc months ago) are gone, everything, just "poof."  I know what happened but it just ticked me off that I did not try, nor see if I could, change the directory of the backup file....but honestly if there isn't a way, then I had no choice.  It was either do what I did, or be stuck with a $400 paperweight. The computer was doing us zero good in that format; to the plus at least it's working again.

I know about making backup discs, but my problem is that I've 1) got to find my emachine backup first, and 2) even if I do, there's not a guarantee I backed up after the first time it died - so I may still be out Studio 10 (I've lost my activation key somehow and Pinnacle no longer supports it), which really ticks me off at myself.

Oh well...a vent for what good it did. If you know of a way I might recover that old backup file from July / August of this year from the D Drive, please post it here...I'll be forever indebted to you if it recovers that material!

At this point, I concur - stay away from eMachine, they are nothing but trouble after a couple years!


TOK:

While they are definitely low end machines, I think they would probably be fine for most MAME stuff.
The problem you had whether virus or drive related could have happened even if you were running an $8000 Alienware. eMachines doesn't make the drives, you just had some bad luck.


TheSlim:

how did it "catch a little virus" if you were just running mame?  I unless you were following links in the games like Pipi & Bibis  :laugh2:

Anyway, with the emachines, and I am just speculating generally, they usually have inadequate cooling methods (that is where they cut their costs).  Check to see that it is not overheating too.  That could lead to some of the problems you mentioned.   When they are cooled down, they should be fine for mame.  Unless you are trying to run a chd game. 

As for the backup stuff, I could not really follow your post, are you asking a question? 

DJ_Izumi:

Sounds like the machine is fine and it was just the hard drive that messed up, which you really can't blame on the 'economy design' of the computer as hard drives are pretty standard.  You can't really 'cheap out' on a hard drive afterall.

RTSDaddy2:

When I'm  :angry: I do ramble, and apologize for that...it's a flaw, I'm working on it.

My question, simply stated, is there any chance of finding some of those files that are supposedly erased on the D Drive (recovery drive), and if so, how would I go about doing so?

Rambling goofy response nets me rambling goofy answers, that's for sure. While I'm here, to clarify, ours is hooked up to the net, sure - how else would I download the next version of MAME if I so wanted it? I'm not completely dense, I know where the virus came from, if it is a virus.

Slim, I will check on the heating as I can...if it is that, it'll be a while before I can afford to have that fixed probably (without work at the moment).



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