Recovery

The installation of my new HDD and the transfer of my most important data is complete. Looking back on everything, it could have been much worse. I know in the months to come, there will be times I really want to find an old email for some information, but at least all my emails from my fiancee are still around, as well as most of my pictures.

The final big transfer I had to do was my iTunes library. My MP3 collection was hit by the data loss, so my only real option was to recover from my iPod. Unfortunately, as anyone with an iPod knows or finds out, this is not an easy thing. Oh, recovering the songs is easy enough. The problem comes in recovering playlists and song ratings. With over 6000 songs, most rated, I really didn't want to go through the rating process again. Eventually, after some research, I shelled out a nominal amount of cash for a utility that could "reverse sync" iTunes to my iPod. It worked very well and took away the nightmarish hassle the process would otherwise be. Still, reverse syncing is a feature that should be in the iPod/iTunes combo by default.

LOST!

No, I have not become a viewer of enigmatic cult show. Rather, I bring much sadder news (for yours truly at least). Yesterday, my dear PC refused to boot. It appeared that the long fruitful life of my Hard drive had come to an end. After spending all night reinstall, running disk scans, and trying repairs, I was able to get her to boot and begin to survey the damage. It appeared that .5% or so of my hard disk had gone bad. This doesn't sound bad, but this means over 1GB of data was lost.

While a lot of this data was bits and pieces of programs that can be reinstalled, the heaviest hit was the loss of my main Inbox for my personal email. 5+ years of emails, mostly gone. Fortunately, all my emails from my fiancee are still present, as they had been copied to a different email folder.

Also, it looks like while I may have lost some photos, the vast majority of them are still there.
So, while overall frustrating, and time consuming (I am still doing installs, and recovery, and lots more to do), I am glad that the data loss was not much worse.

When drives start to go bad, they can quickly become worse and worse. So, I wasted no time and purchased a new drive today. The silver lining is that now, instead of a 200GB HDD, I now have a 320GB HDD. This also gives me an opportunity to do some housecleaning, only copying over files I plan to use.

I put a fresh install on the new drive, and am in the process of reinstalling what I need to use. I will also pick through my old files and get them copied over. I still have to big hassle of getting my songs (and hopefully playlists and song ratings) from my iPod to my new HDD, which Apple does not make easy.

Oh, my Crysis save (the only PC game I am actively playing on my main PC currently) was also lost, but the game is so damn fun that I don't mind starting fresh :)

Look Ma, I'm upside-down!

Prey Complete - I didn't put this on my goal list, but it'll go on my completed goal list. When the FPS "Prey" went on sale for $5, it was an offer too good to pass up. The game is a lot of fun, and plays with gravity and your perception of space quite a bit. If you get motion sick playing FPS's, this game will really have your head spinning and stomach churning.
The only con is that the main character complains a little too much.

Boof Rating: Fun

New list, and goal updates

I've decided to be a little realistic, and add the option to abandon goals if it becomes impractical, impossible, or not entertaining to complete them. Since the goal of games is to have fun, I don't want any goal I set for myself to feel like a job.

The first goal that gets added to this list of shame is Soul Calibur: Legends. I've reached a point in the game where the difficulty has ramped up, and it requires repeating the same stage over and over until I finally get lucky enough to beat it. The problem is that, while SC:L is an entertaining distraction to play for 15 - 30 minutes, the gameplay is just not fun enough to justify playing this same level (and likely subsequent ones) over and over until I complete. At this point, I've seen basically all the game has to offer in terms of gameplay, and I am content to put it away on my shelf.

As for a Boof Rating, I have to give it a reluctant Meh. As stated, I did find it entertaining, and a good diversion. But, the repetition in environs, along with the difficulty scaling cause this rating. I'd say it is still worth a rental if you are a fan of Soul Calibur. It is disappointing because a brawler using SC characters had so much potential.

In other goal news, I've essentially completed my SSB:B goals. I still have to get the rest of the music that drops as CDs during brawls. This may takes some time, but I'll work at it :)

New Toys!

A combination of some gift exchanging with the fiancee, some games on sale at Target, and a really nice sale on Warhammer Fantasy and Vallejo paints at a local game store has brought in the above haul. It'll give me something to do for the next couple months until she returns in June :)