Just wanted to whine a little...

Had (remember HAD) Poser on an internal 160gb HD...  that HD up and died on me 2 weeks ago...  finally found the time to replace it and am now reinstalling all my Poser content...  I've been at it for hours!!  The old runtime was about 26gb and I'm sure the external hd that has all my poser stuff (also backed up on dvd's) is gonna explode after all this activity of reinstalling!! 

Stupidly, just before the HD died I even reinstalled 3d Studio Max to that drive and had a few new projects going too...  those too lost!!!  Sniff!!!

I have at least half the Daz characters installed and enough stuff to start playing again but it's taking so, so long!!

Would backing up the runtime folder itself after everything is installed be the  prudent way to go??  Just wondering if a backed up runtime folder moved to the install folder would still function correctly??

Thanks for letting me whine and complain!!

SIGH!  Back to the installs!!

Gerard

Don't  feel bad, I have been reinstalling my content for well over a week. I just needed to clean up though, no crash. BUT, I have lost everything before, and the backup runtime I had then worked perfectly. Good luck!

-Sarah

Keep in mind that unless the same data exists in at least two locations, it's one electromagnetic pulse away from oblivion. I've learned the hard way to be fanatical about backing up EVERYTHING. To answer your question, absolutely back up your runtime directory. If you restore your backup to its original location, should have no path problems.

I recommend you keep system and data directories on seperate hard drives, which will minimise the likelihood of losing your data should your system fail. I keep all my Poser stuff on a dedicated HD, including the app itself. This allows the transfer of ALL things Poser to any number of backup disks, and lets me jump right back into Poser without having to reinstall the app. If you go this route, you'll want to get a copy of Correct Reference by Hogsoft, to keep your data paths coherent should your root directory change. I use CR Pro, bu I think there's a free version available.

My rule is to have double the HD capacity I use for actual computing, so that all active disks are backed up. Some backups I store at the office should the house burn down. You can get away with less than double capacity if you use a compressive backup prog like Acronis True Image.

All that extra HD capacity might seem like expensive overkill, but hard disks are cheap compared to wasting your time reinstalling, and are DEAD CHEAP compared to losing thousands of hours of work.

Good luck!

I would definitely recommend backing up runtimes rather than installers. Whilst it might take up a little more space on your storage of choice, it's a heck of a lot easier to reinstall - just copy from one medium to the other, in fact.

JonTheCelt

Thanks for all the tips!!!  Great to know that I can backup my runtime and NEVER have to reinstall everything!!

My new problem now is that my dvd writer seems to have packed it in today too!!!  It's been working great since late 2003 and I suppose it just needed to die!  Guess I'll be heading to Future Shop tomorrow!!  DRAT!!  I hate going there!!  They have way too much cool computer stuff and I always end up spending way too much and I always pick up more stuff than I originally go in there for!!

Thanks again!!

Gerard

oh no. guess we won't be seeing any renders for awhile. Maybe you could take some leave from real job to finish the installation. Love esther

I can confim that backing up yer Runtime (that sounds rather disgusting) will save you a lot of pain later, when your new HD goes up in smoke.  Note I said "when", not "if". 

I wish I could take some time off from work but if I did I totally wouldn't worry about redoing my runtime!!  I would sleep...  oh I would sleep so darned much!!  SIGH!

And in all honesty I haven't been rendering anything major in ages...  just cheezy pinups lately and they're just for my LBA Club (don't ask!) from my Gallery friends here!  I've been wanting to get back to my original projects that require more time than I have to devote.

I'm still working on the reinstall as it's all on an external HD but the writer dying was just icing on the cake!

C'est la vie!!  Que sera, sera!!!

Gerard

Oh ho !  I am not the only one bogged down with kaput hard drives, runtime re-installs, lost archives, bunged up DVDrom and CDrom backups, etc etc etc.  I commiserate with all folk who have to re-install runtimes.  

I can't say it's a simple administrative task to backup Gigabytes of runtimes, but I do it.  Just that every so often, I need to update the backups as new items get installed.
I would rather be rendering than archiving.

So, seeing as I need a new dvd writer...  can anyone recomend a good one?  The deceased one was an LG GSA 4040B that I bought in late 2003...  was only single layer and 4 speed max so I'm pretty sure a modern one will certainly be a step up!

Gerard

I feel for ya!  When I had my laptop I lost track at the number of times I lost everything due to problems and had to reinstall all of my runtimes from scratch. Believe it or not it got to the point where it didn't even phase me anymore,  LOL

Earlier this year my old desktop up and died on me and I saved all of my runtime content to CDs (no DVD burner on that machine) and  in hidden directories on my website because I ran out of CDs!

When I got my new computer whatever I was able to upload to hidden directories on my web I managed to salvage. However most of the stuff on my CDs ended up messed up because I used BatchZip Tool Kit to zip and it didn't retain the folder structure. So I had to reinstall almost everything from scratch..again!  Took me weeks and weeks and weeks.  Months later I'm still looking for things and realizing that I don't have it installed.

hugs