Hello! Now for some 'News'.
I've had a pretty bad time since my last post.
As a matter of fact, it's been a stream of bad luck for around the last 2 months...
Currently, I'm having EVEN MORE hard drive trouble (previous hard drive trouble). This time, my secondary internal hard drive, home to 500GB of beautiful data, has failed.
Unlike my other failed hard drive, it does not click. In fact it just sits there. Cold and dead. No whirring sound, no recognition. It's more or less a rock right now.
So in the spirit of DIY, I set to work on trying to repair it myself. I signed myself up to several discussion boards on hardware/hard drive repair, and started telling my woeful tale of a SHIT hard drive, that lasted less than 12 months.
I discovered, that unlike my other clicking hard drive, I had a chance of recovering all my data requiring very little work or money.
I could skip the details, but I feel like boring you, so here's the supposed problem:
There's a controller board on the underside of every hard drive, and the problem apparently exists just in this tiny removable motherboard.
So I got the correct screwdriver, unscrewed the sorry piece of hardware, then I hooked the supposed broken components to a multimeter.
It was at this point that I realised how much of a fucking nerd I am.
Anyway, Long story short - I rubbed my soldering iron across the belly of my PCB (Printed Circuit Board), removing the supposed failed components.
It was a very fiddly thing to do, but I think I did it successfully without destroying any of the working components on the PCB.
So with some confidence, I plugged my hot warm and tampered PCB into his hard drive chum.
I then plugged my hard drive into the computer.
Power on.
Nothing.
The hard drive didn't start whirring. It wasn't recognised, instead it just sat there... it did shit all.
So for the time being, I've put my dead hard drive to one side, and now I'm just waiting for my hard drive specialist contact to get back to me...
Life doesn't get better than this.
Oh, and the data that is on there is the following:
- All my Flash source files from PRE Bunny Invasion 1
- 80GB of music. All of which I love and cherish.
- Software installations
- Quite a few movies, TV shows, and lots of stand up
- Everything else in life that I enjoy...
And here are a couple of pictures:
Now here's what's happened in the last 2 months, in order:
- PS3 broke, got a new PS3.
- PS3 Hard drive was accidentally wiped.
- iPod Touch broke (luckily I sent it back and got a new one, however its latest firmware does not allow me to 'Jailbreak' it.)
- Virus infects computer, resulting in a wipe that does nothing, a second wipe that removes it, and then days of reinstalling & downloading software.
- Secondary hard drive fails.
- Apple block Flash compiled apps created with the new Flash CS5 program, thus ruining any possibility of iPhone app development in the future, therefore rendering my reason for purchasing the iPod Touch, USELESS! (But I do enjoy viewing my emails through it)
...Not to mention the other failed hard drive 6 months ago.
These problems have staggered my work on the game and have ruined many days.
However, I hope that I can get back to work on the game uninterrupted now until its release.
Speaking of the school game, I think I will go ahead with my plans to set a release date in the near future, forcing myself to get the game finished by any means necessary.
I'm currently finishing the characters so that they all animate properly and are clothed correctly.
Also, in the past few days, to hopefully quash all future hardware failure fears, I purchased a brand new computer!
No doubt you'd like to hear the specs, eh?
Well how does 2.8GHz Quadcore and 8GB of RAM sound to yer?
Yeah... I thought so too.
And I only spent just over £500. Bargain I think.
This computer upgrade will also make working on the game MUCH easier. In the recent past, I've had many problems with the School Game source file crashing on me all the time, losing lots of time and patience.
Also, due to the entire game existing in a single file (madness, but unfortunately no other alternative), doing simple tasks like moving an object or changing code, can result in a 2-3 second lag. By the end of the day, I have wasted probably all together over an hour just waiting.
I think this post has gone a little over length, so I'll sign off now.
I'll be posting some BRAND NEW pictures of the 'School Game' in the next post, and maybe a release date!
What I think I need is a ticking clock on the front page like you see on 24. Although it'll be a little misleading, because I can't honestly set a release date as I would need to have made a sponsorship deal beforehand, so the release date may be a few weeks off... Well it'll be useful for me so I'll probably do it anyway.
Almost 1,000 words! That must be a record.
By the way, leave some comments again for my hard work :)
The previous news comments were very kind and I enjoyed reading them.
Bye!