Inspired by my own almighty PC cockup today, in which I decided to format my hard drive, saving everything I needed to another drive bar a small section you could call "everything and anything related to my music production inc. samples, songs, arrangments etc" :sob: I thought I'd write a thread where we could laugh at our own mistakes and learn from others. My top tip for the day. Make regular backups of all your work. :P
the old "nice clean hard drive.... FUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!" chestnut... been there before now :wacko: on a slightly different note- anyone ever been working on a tune thats getting kinda complex... few audio engine glitches etc but nothing too serious... only to come back the next day and find that for no apparent reason the computer SUDDENLY can't handle it anymore? ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!
ooh but on a good note, a lacie 80gig usb hard drive is on its way to me, no more data loss, back it up on theer and reformat evry week i'm plotting doing a album, only writing one song at a time and formatting after every finished tune, so i HAVE to finsih each one before staring another hopefully it'll work out good as i noticed all my best tune are written following a new piece of kit/ reformat
When Tim Healey and I did Revelation (Automatic Records 2000) we were mixing the track on the final day when my PC started to lock up every time I tried to stop playback, fast-forward or rewind. From a fresh reboot we had to run the track from the top - ONCE - write down any changes we wanted to make to the mix, reboot, make the changes, save as a new version, reboot, listen back, write down any changes (repeat until no hair left to pull out). Turned out nicely though.
Ok - where to start? I once bought a voodoo 3 gfx card and in my haste to fit it, forgot to power down the PC before removing the old agp card. "Phut!" Once I realised I'd killed the motherboard, i decided to build my own PC, emboldened by the fact that my brother [not the sharpest tool in the shed, bless him..] had built his. It was only after I powered up and got nothing but a frantic beep from the mobo - i realised i hadn't seated the agp card correctly... "Phut!" Returned the mobo to microdirect saying it was faulty. To their credit they replaced it in days. Tried again. This time it all powered up fine, but would cut out after 10 minutes. Two days of struggling to install Windows later, I suddenly noticed i'd fitted the heatsink 90 degrees the wrong way round. It wasn't actually touching the cpu. "Phut!" New cpu fitted and with the heatsink on the right way round, i finally got it all built and installed. A lovely new Athlon XP 1600. Worked great. Then, my mate told me he could overclock it and turn it into a 2ghz!! I was gullible and let him fiddle with the jumpers on the mobo. After 30 minutes of going "Ummm... errr..." and breathing thru his nose, we booted up and the HD made a sound like a lawnmower. Faint smell of burning. "Phut!" New HD fitted. Eventually, I got it working and started a tune. All fine. Then, one night we had a major thunderstorm. The house next to mine recieved a direct lightning strike and lost its roof. I lost my modem, motherboard, midi interface and everything on my HD's. "Phut!" Haven't had a major mishap in a couple of years now, but I'm sure as soon as I get complacent and forget to back up my song folder, my house will get hit by a falling grand piano, or fall into an abandoned tin mine under my street. Best advice I can give? Get a DVD burner and back up regularly.
haha..cheers ott...you made my bluff seem quite alright! I think CD burner would a good idea.... At least my PC's nice and fast again, and doesnt crash every 2 minutes. Jsains> Thats inspired me, hopefully my tunes will be much tighter now.
I have just finished backing up formatting and reinstalling everything only to find that my old cool edit installation disk has a big crack through it.
I'm too scared to purge my laptop at the moment.... I just have this feeling that something horrible is gonna happen....
Not a cock up as such but.........another lightning strike story. Picture the scene, it is the front room of a flat in south east London. In progress is what we call a "quiet" rave. That is to say a group of friends have gathered to listen to music at a volume that will not elicit a response from the boys in blue. We are flicking between the stereo and web streams for our music. we are all a little :crazy: :smokingrasta: :jump: :headbang: :excited: :partysmi: ....well it is a rave ya' know. A thunder storm passes over us....full on lightning the whole shebang.....cool we think, lightshow and then BANG!........a deafening silence. scared the cr*ap out of us. lots of "wow, did you see that" type converstions. There is burning smell. the pooter is still running, but there is smoke coming out of the isdn deeley. upon examination, the big chip inside the router is neatly bisected. thankfully no other damage....even the cables were OK!
