Recovered from total crash in half an hour... with no backup

[Guest Syvwlch]

My SPV crashed and burned tonight. :evil:

First time! :roll:

So I'm left with a perfect test to see how fast I can get it back to it's former tiptop condition!

Had no backup (hey, why remove the fun and thrill of living on the edge?), so I just did a hard reset, then de-certed with the wonderful DecHelp program, then spent five minutes rebuilding the Start Menu, lost a minute or two reinstalling RegEdit (had installed it to the phone originaly), reinstalled my favourite skin, and since everything else was on the card... was done.

Oh, and ofcourse a little sync with Outlook!

Time elapsed : less than 30 minutes.

Don't you like it when technology works like it's supposed to? 8)

[Guest casper508]

Good job! Now lets see if someone can beat 30 mins ! :)

Cas

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

My SPV crashed and burned tonight.  :evil:

Don't you like it when technology works like it's supposed to?  8)

Contradiction in terms, Syvwlch? :)

[Guest Gorskar]

lol, nicely spotted :)

[Guest Myke]

Heres a TIP!

make a folder on your sd card called Shortcuts. Copy all the sd card program's shortcuts to this directory, then if you ever have to hard reset, all you have to do is move the pre-made shortcuts to the start menu! :)

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

Myke , now that I like :) good tip

[Guest Syvwlch]

Yes, that was the most tedious bit in the reconstruction. There are now copies of my Start Menu on both my PCs. ;)

As for the contradiction... I'd been messing with the reg settings, then got impatient with a sloooooow file transfer, and started doing nasty things with the Task Manager... I think I deserved what I got. :)

I think technology that can be made to recover so fast from a serious bugger-up is good technology. Neh?

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I think that technology that doesn't bugger up in the first place is good technology ;p

[Guest Syvwlch]

Well... I beg to differ.

Technology that doesn't fail is fantastic technology, and I wonder which sense of fantastic i mean :) . Should prolly cost a minor fortune, too.

Technology that fails gracefully is great technology, and we trust it with our lives when we get in cars, elevators, planes, or hospitals.

Technology that fails now and again, but recovers without too much hassle is ok for many purposes, tho, and we've been spoiled to expect fast time-to-markets and low costs, so there is strong demand for this level of tech. We have become used to the "just reboot it!" paradigm in many areas.

I would NOT pay 50% more for an SPV that never needed a hard reset, because 1/2 hour of my time is acceptable now and then (it's only happened to me once!).

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I'll think about my reply over breakfast and reply then ;p

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

long breakfast then mono? :)

[Guest cyrilthefish]

When i last crashed my phone and had to reset the IPSM, i had to wait untill i got home to get everything working! because i couldn't run anything on the memory card due to the lack of a built in file-system viewer :twisted:

i managed to use orange backup to restore my phone numbers, and even managed to re-download all-explorer via GPRS, but for some reason it wouldn't activate... doh!

i would have been ok if work let me use the data cable on my work PC :)

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Sorry got caught up at work, 10 hour day for me ;)

To be honest, i'd rather the resources put into making failsafes and backup procedures for technology were redirected into making the product infallible. Any tech that fails, however impressive, isn't as good as it could be, imho. Having said that i am arguing the wrong side here, as if we did live in a perfect world i would be out of a job in terms of a living and on this board :)

[Guest RMWD]

the wonderful DecHelp program, 8)

What program is this? Have you a link?

[Guest Syvwlch]

It is the decertification tool from Will and you can find it by clicking on the link in Mono`s signature.

[Guest casper508]

Heres a TIP!

make a folder on your sd card called Shortcuts.  Copy all the sd card program's shortcuts to this directory, then if you ever have to hard reset, all you have to do is move the pre-made shortcuts to the start menu! :)

What about registry entries? We'll have to reinstall some of the apps.

Quite a few apps are all about a single exe file so they shud work fine.

Still a very useful tip tough.

Another workaround could be to BACKUP the registry every 2-3 weeks or so (about 500Kb each). Registry files cant be imported but they CAN be restored.

A shortcuts folder and a registry backup and we'll be sorted cometh the hour.

Cas

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I don't think any applications put in registry keys when installing do they? On a quick broswe through most seem to be simply storing settings etc.

[Guest casper508]

Im not quite sure but arent DLLs supposed to be registered first ?

Cas

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

On looking through the certification requirements it seems the only registry entry installers put in is a key to let the applicaiotn know where it has been installed. I'm not overly sure how important this is though as the majority of applications to date are single .exe's. Althoguh i would imaging they will become more complex in the future...

[Guest midnight]

some registry keys are required for software to run correctly, but, usually this info is just preferences and are just restarted if the program cant find the relevant registry entry. however, a badly programmed app may crash if it doesnt find the registry entry, but in most cases it should be ok