WARNING - Half-Life! (I need help!)

[mortensen]

I have just uninstalled Half-Life and it has wiped all files / folders in the same directory. Seeing that I installed it into the Program Files folder I have lost all my programs - This consists of 2-3 gigabytes of data. This was AFTER updating all the Sierra Update files, etc. I have heard of this problem b4 but was led to believe that this was fixed in the update .

I have sent of a letter to Sierra asking for a solution. I have not installed anything else on my hard-drive.

I am VERY ****ed off and it took me a while to come up with a peaceful letter to send to Sierra. EVERYTHING is gone and I'm seriously thinking of giving up on computers... they are just too much trouble. Even an experienced user like me can have their hard-drive wiped by a non-malicious file... WTF chance have we got against a program that sets out to do the same???

If this can't be fixed then I will only use my computer for the internet in future.

-mortensenj

[Daysleeper]

I have installeduninstalled half life loads of times.. and appart from installing under 2000 I have never had any problems nor I have I ever heard of a program or uninstaller being able to wipe out files it didn't create. But if there gone thier gone and the only thing I can think of is using a recovery tool.. as I am sure you know that when you delete something it does't go, windows just forgets about it and using something like Nortons Un-erase (there are better ones on the net but usually cost) you can re-find them. Problem is that if you have written anything to the hard disk after it could have wiped over them .. and somethimes it will be unable to recover the file names exactly... if I were you I would start again..and if you are using NT/2K/Xp then only ever log on as a user not an administrator then program files are automatically protected.

[Malechai Veteran]

Mortensen, its ironic you that this just happened to you because the same thing happened to me yesterday afternoon. I uninstalled Sierra Utilities (not Half Life) because the latest patch has a new updating utility and I figured I could do away with it. Well, a few clicks later and a few curses, I found out that the damn uninstall deleted all the files in the base folder that Half Life was installed in.

I read a long time ago about this problem but it was supposed to be fixed in a patch. The weird thing is I uninstalled the Sierra Utilities, but it uninstalled itself, Half Life and deleted every other file in my C:Games folder.

Only my games were wiped out and I'm dreading having to install all my games and get back to the point where I was at with them. But this by no means compares to wiping out your entire Program Files directory.

I sympathize with you man, I really do.

[Toxicfume Veteran]

darn mortensen!

i know how it feels like getting a load of files and programs deleted, sorry for ya :(

And do post the what sierra responds

:roll:

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

Yes this seems to be a major problem ... I have been emailing Sierra about it for a while ... it seems to happen when u install Half-Life into a directory other than default ... One person I spoke to at the Tech Support told me that if I insisted on changing path's to programs, this is what I should expect!!!

[Malechai Veteran]

omg thats complete horseshit. if they properly coded their installation, it would be able to handle switching paths correctly! Thats definately not something a user should expect. But you can expect a company like Sierra to say that just to cover their own asses.

To that tech: Ignorance is bliss, eh?

[Quboid]

Yeah, I've been there too, however I'd heard of this happening and when the uninstall took so long I canceled it and saved half the stuff.

Not very impressive Sierra.

[mortensen]

I have started from scratch. Formatted and was back running within an hour with most of my programs installed.

I read a long time ago about this happening... it is to do with Sierra Utilities and NOT Half-Life itself. I am very disappointed with Sierra because of this.

It is possible to take out a court order against them for only ?10 and I am SERIOUSLY considering doing this. I probably won't bother though cos it's just too much hastle and most of the damage has been fixed, but I never know what I'm gonna do:)). I will post back NE reply I get.

Some of the programs I lost:

Adobe Photoshop 6

Trillian

WinAMP

WinAce

WinMX

Kazaa

Starlancer

Norton Antivirus

GetRight

And loads more I can't remember now.

It's just a TOTAL waste of my time and hard work... all the files I've created, all the games I've got into and lost... the hastle of formatting my drive and reinstalling Windows! ARGHHH!!! But it's not as bad as I first said... I will probably continue to use computers but I was just SO ****ED OFF!

-mortensenj

[me101 Veteran]

It's going to be very hard to prove that the program actually produced the results that you say, unless you can actually 100% duplicate the problem, again.

This way you would have some sort of ammo when you next contact the company in regards to their product being defective.

Hope you get some joy from Sierra, I've already run into this with a CD key issue, and after a week of phone calls they eventually gave me a new CD key, said that the key on my original box was due to a printing error, yea right!

[mortensen]

I'd have to look into recreating it but I'm pretty sure I could probably manage it. As for the serial key, that's bad... at least they gave you a new one.

-mortensenj

[blitzkrg]

Just 1 word for you pal.. Ghost...

you need, a computer, a cd burner, ghost and reasonable amount of common sence.. sorry i dont feel for you.. yes i 100% agree that there software should not be nukeing your stuff.. HOWEVER... 100% believe you got what you deserved for not having a working a backup.. the golden rule has always been BACKUP YOUR STUFF...

here is the process so you dont have this problem in the future.

1) install your o/s and all your programs.

2) understand where and how your important data is stored.

such as, your email, your favorites, your address book and if you use something like ms money your money data files.

understand where these programs store there data files which cannot be replaced if your HD goes down. you SIMPLY copy that data to another hard drive or computer.

3) now make a backup of your entire hard drive using ghost to create a backup image and burn that image on cd.

if your machine takes a crap for whatever reason, simply format it, use ghost to re-install your HD image, and copy your important data back of that you backed up..

in 10 mintues you have have your computer backup and running with no loss of data.

you get a virus, big deal, you get a worm , big deal.. you get a trojan or a program that nukes your data, big deal.. you (god forbid) are stupid and screw something up.. big deal.. YOU HAVE A GHOST BACKUP..

and then you wont need to get on this message board and complain that you lost everything. you will have outsmarted sierra and there attempt to royally **** you off.

enjoy :)