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							cwieberdink
							
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							What is the best, most long-term reliable option for backing up arrtificial game files?  An external harddrive?  Tape drive?  What does El Presidente use? 
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							Darkerdink -- aide to Dark_Trepie.  Now with moar dark! 
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							Emma
							
								Goopy Lover 
								Dead Member
								  
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								All Pescados Suck.
								
								
								
								
								
								  
								 
							 
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							I burn mine to CDs. 
  [eta] None of these are sims games, I have other torrented stuff that I've burned to disk. I've bought all the sims games, more fool me. 
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									« Last Edit: 2008 June 19, 14:19:13 by Emma »
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							jolrei
							
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							I burn to CD as well.  On the other hand, the torrents are also still on my larger hard-drive, since I have the space. 
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							 Tribulatio proxima est 
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							Lord Darcy
							
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							To avoid the Dance of 10+ Discs, I burnt all ARRtificial ISOs from Double Deluxe (Base Game+NL+CEL) to Seasons onto a dual-layered DVD, and use Daemon Tools to mount ISOs. All patches and a text file containing all serials are included as well. 
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							 Baroness 
							cwieberdink
							
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							The reason I'm asking is because mine were all burned to discs, which are unscratched and still managed to somehow become corrupted.  I don't trust it totally anymore for backup.  Even my legally owned, original manufacturer's DVD of TS2 is "unreadable or corrupted" despite having been installed with no problems on May 11.  
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							Darkerdink -- aide to Dark_Trepie.  Now with moar dark! 
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							jsalemi
							
								Town Crier 
								Vacuous Vegetable
								      
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								In dog we trust, all others pay cash...
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							Sounds more like it might be a problem with your DVD drive... 
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							Jelenedra
							
								The New "Gay" 
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								Evil Mastermind BehindTorturing Emo 12s
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							How big does a normal back up take? Not counting custom content, that's a seperate backup IMO. If it's not too big, I'd suggest an USB flash drive.  
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							  | Why are all these damn hippies on my website?
  We are on your forum, taking over your world and making your children gay.  |  
  
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							Zazazu
							
								Fuzzy Pumpkin 
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							My actual downloaded games are backed up on my D: drive as well as on CD. My CC & 'hoods are backed up on the D: drive and on a 4 gig flash drive. 
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							Capitalism, Ho!"Continue to beat it in masturbatory ecstasy if you like, but only Pescado can make it go away." - Lemmiwinks My Urinal 
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							 Baroness 
							cwieberdink
							
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							Sounds more like it might be a problem with your DVD drive...
  I sure hope not.  It's a new computer.  But someone else did suggest this also.  Hmmmmm.  
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							Darkerdink -- aide to Dark_Trepie.  Now with moar dark! 
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							spambi
							
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							Does anyone use the backup function in SimPE? I do, but I've never used it to restore so I don't know if it works. It seems like a really easy solution, though it doesn't backup CC (as far as I can tell). 
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							jolrei
							
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								Son of Perdition
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							Does anyone use the backup function in SimPE? I do, but I've never used it to restore so I don't know if it works. It seems like a really easy solution, though it doesn't backup CC (as far as I can tell).
  SimPE has a backup feature, which may work.  However, I have heard of people having problems with restoring.  For backing up neighbourhoods and CC, I use the "copy folder to new location" method using Windoze Explorer.    I just set up a "Simsbackups" folder and copy Downloads and Neighborhoods folders into that.  Much simpler and faster than waiting for SimPE to load.  I have never had a problem restoring from backup using this method. SimPE can not be used to back up electronic images of game disks (i.e. arrr! copies).  
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							 Tribulatio proxima est 
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							maxon
							
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								Unrepentant Inteenimator User - Kitten Killer.
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							I back up everything to my external hard drive.  CDs can become corrupted, especially cheap ones.  I need the security of the external hard drive since I'm donig a PhD - though that is backed up in at least two other locations too. 
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							Inteen for AL, yay! 
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							Roux
							
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							Sounds more like it might be a problem with your DVD drive...
  I sure hope not.  It's a new computer.  But someone else did suggest this also.  Hmmmmm. I had a new computer with a faulty CD-ROM drive that died within 6 months. (This was before I started downloading cracked executables, and I think excessive simming with the disc contributed to its early death.) It was fully covered under warranty; the manufacturer shipped a replacement to me for free. Any chance you got SecuRom? Breaking CD/DVD-ROM drives is one of the things for which it has a reputation...  
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							You have your way with him, and you'll never get to destroy the world; and I don't fancy spending the next six months trying to get librarian out of the carpet. 
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							 Baroness 
							cwieberdink
							
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  I had a new computer with a faulty CD-ROM drive that died within 6 months. (This was before I started downloading cracked executables, and I think excessive simming with the disc contributed to its early death.) It was fully covered under warranty; the manufacturer shipped a replacement to me for free.
  Any chance you got SecuRom? Breaking CD/DVD-ROM drives is one of the things for which it has a reputation...
 
 Yeah, the drive is covered, but sending the lappy in and being without it while they fix it is not appealing.       i will check for Securom, but I've been really careful to try NOT to get it!  ETA:  I did, indeed, have SuckROM on my computer.  It's been removed now, so we'll see if the problems fix themselves.      
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									« Last Edit: 2008 June 19, 20:17:44 by cwieberdink »
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							Darkerdink -- aide to Dark_Trepie.  Now with moar dark! 
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							morriganrant
							
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							Crappy cds can also be a problem. I've had several that just broke down and get spots on them. I burn to cd and have them all on my external as I no longer completely trust cds.  
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							One day in college I was feeling very stupid. So I drove with Ben down to Maitland and toured EA Tiburon for an hour as an 'honorary intern'. I left feeling MUCH smarter. I recommend the experience to everyone.  -this is a quote from an Ex-boyfriend of mine.. http://www.mediafire.com/?ng20de0zmly 
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							jsalemi
							
								Town Crier 
								Vacuous Vegetable
								      
								Posts: 4475
								
								 
								In dog we trust, all others pay cash...
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							I back up everything to my external hard drive.  
  That's what I do, too -- external drives are so cheap these days, it's worth it.  I have Retrospect do auto backups of my whole My Docs folder every couple of days, and I also use AllwaySync after every play session to back up my hood files.  I also burn a CD or DVD of important stuff, like videos, pictures, music files, and stuff like that.  
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							J. M. Pescado
							
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							I don't bother to backup CD ISOs. If they somehow manage to break when stored on a 3 TB RAID, I'll just download new ones. Why sweat it? 
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							Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off. 
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							 Baroness 
							witch
							
								Breakfast of Champions! 
								Senator
								  
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								Shunning the accursed daystar.
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							My fists are named Feminine and Wiles. 
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							J. M. Pescado
							
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							They don't cost that much, Poofs. At this point, I reckon the price of such a monster is down to maybe $400, tops. How much do you waste on food a month? I figure that this represents maybe a month or two of leanness and rat-eating. You'll live. You can probably get one even cheaper if you acquire it in "broken" condition and refurbish it, but I wouldn't count on a Poofs doing that. 
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							Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off. 
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							 Baroness 
							witch
							
								Breakfast of Champions! 
								Senator
								  
								Posts: 11638
								
								 
								Shunning the accursed daystar.
								
								
								
								
								
								  
							 
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							They don't cost that much, Poofs. At this point, I reckon the price of such a monster is down to maybe $400, tops. 
  Yeah US$400, plus I bet it would work out to more than the equivalent here. No, I can't repair hard drives. The techie ex has had some success soldering bits on the circuit boards to resurrect some of them though.  
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							My fists are named Feminine and Wiles. 
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