Renderosity Forums / Poser - OFFICIAL
Welcome to the Poser - OFFICIAL Forum
Forum Coordinators: RedPhantom
Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Dec 22 10:18 pm)
Subject: My Life is over!!!!!
I feel your pain. My hard drive crapped out on me awhile back too. Problem is, most of what I lost can't be reinstalled :( Months and months of work, gone in an instant. Most software companies these days will let you send them your original CD and they will send you another one with a new serial number. I always keep my Serial Numbers in a safe place, but I have had to this with with a couple of games that had the CD-Key on the case ( I have a nasty habit of throwing away cases as soon as i get the cd ). Its a hassle but its the most guaranteed way. Just send them an email telling them your dilema and they should send you a link telling you where to go to get it fixed.
Oh Rob, my heart goes out to you, what a way to go cold turkey on an addiction. Have a couple of bevvies and chill out for a while. It won't help but it may make you feel better.
The greatest part of wisdom is learning to develop the ineffable genius of extracting the "neither here nor there" out of any situation...."
Welcome to my world, c1rcle. I just last night finished reinstalling all my poser stuff after crashing back around Mother's Day. Now I get to install all my Vue stuff, my PSP stuff, etc, etc. So far I only lost two serials/code keys and one of the software makers was really good about sending me the original invoice with the key. Haven't contacted the other yet (still gotta find the web address). Helpful hint for next time: Make a rolodex card for each software package and note the sn and URL then stick it in the back of your rolodex. Much easier to find than a manual or a sheet of paper. Kate
I've found a really simple system for protecting my data that's saved my rear end on numerous occasions including crashes, viruses, even OS upgrades that didn't go as planned. It's fast, easy, and affordable: 1) Insert a second hard drive in your system. Should be 2/3 to 3/4 the size of your current drive, minimum. Or get a larger drive and use DriveCopy to transfer your stuff to the new drive, then reformat the old. In any event, you need 2 hard drives. 2) Purchase NovaDisk from www.novastor.com and install it. 3) Set up NovaDisk to backup your system to the second drive every night and leave your computer on 24/7. Backups occur while you sleep. 4) DO NOT use the backup drive for ANYTHING else! Let NovaDisk simply do its job. 5) If you have a LAN, designate at least one hard drive on a different machine as a separate backup drive; NovaDisk will backup across a network and can even use drive mapping or UNC names. If your backup drive fails, no big deal; simply replace it and keep backing up. If your main drive fails: 1) Insert a new drive 2) Do a basic OS install 3) Install NovDisk 4) Recover your data 5) Reboot. Your system is back where it was the last time it was backed up except for a little tweaking. This means the registry, drivers, apps, data, everything.
this is what I do for maintaining important information. I create a text file with all of the serial numbers on it, like ... poser, rhino, byrce, windows, zone alarm ... etc and save it to a CD (you can use a floppy too). Then when I need it.. just load the disk and copy paste the info, back in business. bob
Woah, I pray that doesn't happen to me. I backup my stuff on cdrw discs, so I should be ok if the worst happens. I also wrote the serial number on the backpage of the Poser manual, and I keep the boxes and manuals together (I write it on most manuals if it isn't there already). But come to think of it, I can't remember where I got the serial number from in the first place...was it on the discs?A slip of paper?Anyway, I've also done a text document with all my serial numbers on it, on disc, too ;) JoeBlack
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I found it, I've just spent the last couple of hours racing round the house like a maniac looking for bits of paper, then scaring the poor bl**dy cats by jumping about like a big kid cause I found it, and it was in the place I put it and looked 3 times and didn't see it, been putting everything on disks 1 is staying on my desk at all times and the other is going to my safe place, I can't believe I looked and didn't see it. Now I gotta think of something to say to the people at CL to apologise for pestering them for nothing. Thanks for all the advise and sympathy guys & girls. Rob
Rob, I hadn't dared to look at this thread for awhile. I felt your pain! Great! You found the serial number. You have inspired me to backup my Poser stuff using NTI Backup NOW. It just so happens I bought the Lara Croft Movie, and have something to occupy myself while the computer is backing up! Now follow some good advice, and back everything up!
Ayeesh! Glad youfound it! I'm wth Tygercub-- I always write the serial number on the CD. I also write it on a wee post-it note and stick the post-it note to the outside of the plastic case in the CD-wallet that they all live in (CD cases never make a transatlantic, I fear). I ALSO e-mail it to myself and keep a back-up of my e-mail archives: very useful, as most of my shareware serial codes are in e-mails.
Glad you found it ok, c1rcle. I know how it feels when you panic because of a "lost" important number or whatever required for software. I guess the obsession with registering and serial numbers is just a consequence of the spread of warez. And yes Turtle, I just realised I don't think PSP7 needs a serial number - phew. But it just illustrates how panicky I get over software details lol I have a feeling that no matter how much stuff I backup, I'll forget SOMETHING important lol JoeBlack
This will not help you now, but I keep all serial numbers in a little notepad, so if the unthinkable happens(and it has)to me, I always can look it up. Another good practice is to keep all D/L's on CD's as backups. In case the drive dies, they can be re-installed. I had a major drive crash a while back. The only things I lost permanently were what I didn't have backed up on CD's. Everything else was on a backup CD, or the CD that came with the program. You can also keep serials on your PC wordpad and save them to a CD so they can be recovered. I LOVE my CD burner!
I recorded all of my serial numbers to a text file for easy reference, and backed that file up in sixteen different places, just to avoid that sort of trouble....
===========================sigline======================================================
Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking. He apologizes for this. He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.
Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below. His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.
Gee... I feel like a neandertal! My registration numbers are all written in pencil on a real lined PAPER pad. That pad isn't in the same room as the computers. Computer media is often unreadable within a few years... think about those floppies which were fine 5 years ago... whereas graphite on paper should still be legible in a thousand years. Rob... I'm glad that it worked out ok. {hug} Carolly
Changed my mind. I will have mirror images all of my serial numbers tatooed to my hiney....
===========================sigline======================================================
Cage can be an opinionated jerk who posts without thinking. He apologizes for this. He's honestly not trying to be a turkeyhead.
Cage had some freebies, compatible with Poser 11 and below. His Python scripts were saved at archive.org, along with the rest of the Morphography site, where they were hosted.
Nosfiratu, good advice. My crash went something like this: 1. Install new 120 gig HD. 2. Discover it's too big for the BIOS to handle. 3. Get new motherboard with faster cpu and newer BIOS. 4. Install new motherboard. 5. Re-install new HD. 6. Say a lot of swear words while formating and partitioning new HD so the flippin' OS will read it all. 7. Move all data from old HD to new HD. 8. Make sure all data on new HD is readable and works and such. 9. Remove old HD and give to hubby. 10. Go make dinner. 11. Finish eating and come back in and try to access data on new HD. 12. Discover that data is all unreadable. 13. Attempt to reinstall old HD only to discover that hubby has already reformatted and installed in his machine. 14. Panic. 15. Spend the next day in bed recovering from panic attack. 16. Spend the week running recovery programs and keeping fingers crossed. 17. Give up when recovery programs yield zero results. 18. Spend the next month and a half moving stuff from the backup CD's to the new HD, installing device drivers and other software. Gawd, what a nightmare that was. But I'm almost finished getting it all back and restored to some semblance of what it was before. Kate
Kate, Rob & others: "I feel your pain." I've been there before. Ouch, Kate, your computer must have been old if it couldn't handle your larger hard drive. Did the manual give you any clues about that situation? If your computer was that old, then maybe your operating system couldn't handle the larger hard drive either?! How in the heck could your hard drive work one moment and not the next? Did you have a bad hard drive? *** Hey folks, we can minimize lots of these problems. I backup my Poser/Runtime folder. If anything goes wrong, I can just reinstall Posr and bring back the Runtime folder on top of the new one. It works like a charm. Ron
Ron, yes, my system was old. I was still running a 400MHz AMD K6-2 CPU. That's why it wouldn't handle the new, larger HD. I had already updated the BIOS on that one as high as it would go. Which is why we had to get the new motherboard. So now I'm running a 1.4 gig Athlon processor and the BIOS handles the new HD just fine. I don't know what caused the new hard drive to fail. I suspect the problem was windows itself. Heck, I'm still trying to get the system to recognize my third 256 Mb RAM stick (no matter what I do the system only recognizes two of my three DIMM slots and it doesn't matter which combination of slots I use and naturally there is absolutely nothing in the manual or troubleshooting section to explain the cause and how to fix it). I actually had to format my primary partition in DOS to enable win98 to read it. Dunno why. But windows will now access the entire 120 gigs so that's behind me at least. As for restoring my files, etc., I'm doing that from the CD archives that I keep. It's taking me a while because I had filled up a 45 gig hard drive and since I'm reinstalling it all, I decided to reorganize it as well - some goes on one partition, some goes on another, etc, PLUS this was a good opportunity to weed out all the junk and useless MAT files from my Pose library. (Most of the MAT files won't work for me because I use a different organization system for the textures to keep from having to sort through umpteen bazillion folders just to find one vicky lip texture). So, instead of just throwing it all into the Poser runtime directory I put it all in a temp directory and then moved the files individually and deleted all the MAT files (otherwise I would have wound up with 350 pose folders). Gawd, I hate MAT files, especially when they come in an .exe instead of a .zip. Kate
Yes, Kate, it sounds like you need someone to look at your computer or motherboard. I'm sure you checked to see if the motherboard can handle all the memory you gave it? I recently had a problem with my motherboard or memory. My old 64MB SDRAM died.. I kept getting beep beep beep when I booted up. I removed the SDRAM, and the beep went away. That was a good excuse to replace that stick with another 256 MB SDRAM. That brought my old Intel Celeron board to the max. I've been inspired to backup my entire Poser Folder.. everything. I'm doing that because some stuff gets installed outside the Runtime folder. I have about 10GB of stuff, and it will take 12 CD's to backup. I've had 30GB installations before. This is an older CD writer, so we're looking at the better part of the day off my computer while the job is done. I'm suffering badly from a cold so it's a good excuse to go downstairs and watch the Lara Croft Tomb Raiders movie I bought. Wooo.
Privacy Notice
This site uses cookies to deliver the best experience. Our own cookies make user accounts and other features possible. Third-party cookies are used to display relevant ads and to analyze how Renderosity is used. By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understood our Terms of Service, including our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy.
ok I'm exaggerating but my worst nightmare has happened, my harddrive crapped out on me earlier and I've just spent most of the day reinstalling everything, but do you think I can find my poser serial numbers? I put them in a "safe place" with the receipt, so until I find them I have no proof that I actually bought poser, any ideas what I can do? Rob (almost suicidal poser addict)