kiev

[adamantine]

i'm in my native city (kiev)
i love it, and i never had plans to relocate to some other city
now i know what it feels like: to try to live during the war

if void decides to remove this topic, i wouldn't be offended
you all may treat this post as some kind of a self-therapy: the nerves are almost on edge

 
i just wanted to say 2 things:

1) there are several topics (mainly my 3 topics from 2021) where i patiently wait for further replies/updates by void
at any moment i may be forced to be away from this forum
which means that i may be not able to answer in time (or answer at all)
i hope that the reality will be not that dark

2) if your place/town of living is not under a bombardment,
then value what you already have in your life (even more than you do now)

[void]

My thoughts are with you, stay safe.

[adamantine]

thank you

[harryray2]

Agree with your comments, one should value the safety of the western country that one lives in. I've travelled the World and been to many 'unsafe' countries..we in Europe are very lucky.

Best of luck, and stay safe...

[LeoLUG]

WOW, powerful post, stay safe!

[adamantine]

harryray2, LeoLUG, thank you

to all of you: the situation is much worse than you can imagine

right now my relatively small family and i are alive, and our houses are not damaged
but i cannot be sure that it will be the same in 24 hours (or even 1 hour)

we live at 2 different sides of kiev:
the family is on the right riverside (there are 7 of 10 city-districts there) (the center of the city is there)
i'm on the left riverside (there are 3 districts here)
we are physically separated and cannot see each other anymore (under any circumstances)
we cannot leave the city safely

it's not known if there will be some food in stores
(there is still something available but the main foodstuffs are already absent)
i think that this aspect will be more or less bearable in the next few weeks
what happens after that: i try not to think about it

 
there's a technical question (which just came into my mind)
(i ask in case if the life will be saved, but the home and all things will be lost):

is there any chance for me to save (copy) my file system? (while i still may try to do something)
i mean, all files and folders from all my 5 hdd (upload them someplace)
currently: et displays their total size as 19,8 tb
the good nuance is: i have the possibility to reduce this size substantially (by archiving to the .rar format)
thus i suppose that those 19,8 tb may be changed to ~14 tb (because i have 158 735 wav-files which are very good when archiving)

 
i'm not asking for some concrete help right now: i'm still thinking about this whole matter (at least i try)
at the moment i only need to know if some (or several) of you have the technical possibility to host some quantity of those numerous huge rar-files (like part-001.rar, part-002.rar, part-003.rar ... part-150.rar)

all rar-files: 1) with the same long password, 2) are not existing yet
i don't really know what exactly could become a solution (when hosting). seemingly: some private and reliable ftp/ftp's

this post may sound very strange and stupid. and there's high probability that it really is
but as you probably understand, some kind of a desperation is what i constantly feel (since the 24th of february) (the day when the war began)
(i don't believe in a soon happy end)

[harryray2]

Not strange..it's something that may help in keeping your mind off of what's happening.

One thing I would suggest is to compress to 7 zip..it gives better compression.

If you want to clone your discs, rather than copy, Macrium reflect free is very good (it also copies).

[void]

Can these files be redownloaded?

If so, please consider creating a file list and generating .sfv / .md5 / .sha256 files.
Store the file lists and .sfv / .md5 / .sha256 files in the cloud.

Stay safe.

[adamantine]

Can these files be redownloaded?

no. they had been downloaded/created/composed/collected/edited... for more than 15 years (some of them: more than 20 years)

i mean, technically many files can be redownloaded (in a very unprepared state) but it will solve nearly nothing
(not a single file will have the same .md5 / .sha256 ...)
(dozens of thousands files were edited/converted/heavily edited)

 

in the cloud

it absolutely seems to be an anti-solution, but anyway: which of them could be recommended?

please consider creating a file list and generating .sfv / .md5 / .sha256 files

if i understood your suggestion correctly:
i already use the great and simple 'win catalog' program for such purposes (version 2.89, released in 2009)

i use the very old version because it generates a cast/mould/'file system list', and saves it in a rather small file
(from ~30 mb to ~80 mb: in my case)
unlike much newer version which does the same (but the size of its 'export' file approaches to 1 gb)

1 possible explanation for such strange behavior of this program: newer version generates its standart file (.wcat) faster:
my old version takes ~10-15 minutes
newer version takes ~~ 2-5 minutes (i don't remember the exact quantity of minutes)

example. my recent .wcat file:
- was created: 2022 02 07
- contains full file structure (ALL titles of all folders and files from all drives) (including all files belonging to the OS)
- size: 75 0 MB (78 708 673 bytes)

 
so the visual state of my file system may be easily saved (theoretically):
- in case a cloud doesn't lose its content (currently i have nothing in clouds: i never used them) (i don't trust them) (they are not reliable)
- in case my flash-drives survive, with their content undamaged
- in case somebody's ftp/ftp's may reliably store some files (the problem is: this could be a very long-term keeping of files)

the content of textual files (37 646 cue files and txt files) may be more or less easily saved too (the same way)

but the biggest problem is the content of wav-files:
please let me know if any of you have at least partial technical possibility to store some archived .rar files (or 7zip files)

 
later i thought that it's not necessary to try to store all ~14 tb in 1 place (for example, in 1 ftp)
all my files may be simply divided into at least 19 parts
in fact, the majority of them is already divided into 19 huge parent folders:

1 14 tb, 2 60 tb, 463 gb
1 55 tb, 1 09 tb, 746 gb
633 gb, 570 gb, 1 16 tb
505 gb, 528 gb, 2 19 tb
377 gb, 215 gb, 2 10 tb
763 gb, 944 gb, 1 66 tb, 2 87 tb

[void]

Start small, backup all your meta data (filenames, file timestamps, cue files etc)

7zip your data with a strong password
Upload your 7zip files to the cloud.
Some suggestions: Google drive, Dropbox (I haven't used these much)

I can offer a couple GB via ftp with high download/upload speeds. (voidtools doesn't have much space sorry)
Send me an email if you're interested: david@voidtools.com

[adamantine]

thank you, void
especially for these words:

I can offer a couple GB via ftp

i'll send you an e-mail later
at the moment i don't have much time

[adamantine]

these are just my current thoughts (no hints or something):

i'm not sure that i will be able to live up to the stable release of ET (or even the beta-version),
considering today's new rockets/explosions/deaths in the centre of my city

(1 of my distant relatives - she's 81 -
lives in just a few buildings from the place where people died - this morning - in the centre of kiev)

(the other shot damaged another district - not in the centre -
the district where all my close relatives live,
including my mother - she's very ill,
and my grandma - she's almost 89)

my recent nocturnal/"this morning's" sleep was divided into at least 6 parts (because of air alerts and various loud fusillades),
but that's nothing (comparing to the fact that ordinary people continue to die)

[void]

How devastating!
This is horrendous.

Stay strong.

[adamantine]

i dream of the times when it's again possible for me to write some suggestions/questions in 1 of the threads of this forum,

for my family, for me, for my city: these weeks are the most difficult (in this whole century),
because the total terror began on the 10th of october (against our infrastructure/electricity/central heating/water...)

the terror is mainly caused by missiles (7 different massive air attacks during october/november),
launched by "you-know-whom"

a lot of things (awful, depressive, unbelievable...) could have been said/wrote here,
but i suspect that in reality nobody cares (or almost nobody)

i would like to say 'thank you' to void
(for his kindness, for his attention to me, though he owes me nothing)

i still have the 1313-version of ET,
i do read the 'alpha-updates' page (sometimes only once in 2 weeks),
but i don't have a normal possibility to do anything more than that, anymore

(each rare hour in front of my dying monitor is a precious thing now)
(my monitor was bought in june of 2008,
and i still remember: that day, how i was carrying it - manually - from a store to my house)

void, i sent 2 e-mails to you (2022-november-10, 13:51) (2022-november-28, 16:16),
i hope that you at least received them
(you don't need to answer if you don't want to)

[void]

Sorry for the delay in my reply.

I've sent an reply email.

I hope things improve for you.
You are in my thoughts.

[meteorquake]

The whole situation is truly harrowing, we are all following it regularly; there's nothing worse than being helpless to do much that will substantially change the situation there, and many other places, and we can only hope for a progressive outcome in the end, whatever that may turn out to be...

For things concerning your files, perhaps you are able to distinguish between the size of priority files (items of high personal value that can't be replaced, such as personal creativity, family photos etc) and secondary files (eg downloaded or CD music, which may or not be exactly replaced) and dispensable ones. (Wav files will perhaps compress 50% using 7z but there are special ones made for compressing music without loss that should work better.)

It may be the priority ones can be more readily backed up, if the rough size were known.

David

[adamantine]

i still have the 1313-version of ET

that was a tiny mistake (i have 1319)

For things concerning your files, perhaps you are able to distinguish

thank you for the reply, but with the current situation (concerning the electricity):
i don't have any normal possibility to make some back-ups, to distinguish anything, to convert wav-files, to prepare something...
(there are small exceptions, but they change nearly nothing anyway)

this december: we usually have something like 4 hours of available electricty (2 + 2) (out of each 24 hours)
(there are usually 2 more hours with electricity - in the middle of the night - but they must not be taken into consideration),

while during the rest of 18-20 hours:
there's either more or less total darkness (in flats/houses, at the streets),
or some kind of a gloomy day-light (very short) (with no electricity as well)

the positive thing is that in july-september i managed to prepare at least some back-ups (partially)

[adamantine]

i'm still alive

[void]

I am glad to hear you are still alive.

Stay safe.

[adamantine]

another massive air attack, another explosions/damages...

         several harsh lines were here, which i decided not to keep, in the end,
         because i realize that they would have not helped anyway, -
         neither for all of us in kiev, nor for my family

the amounts of suffering are beyond any measurement (already a long time ago)