Deleted a scenario by mistake - any way to undo?

[luizsilveira 5]

So I'm quite desperate. Several days and countless hours working on a mission with a lot of stuff, many custom scripts, the works.

 

I got onto the editor and for some reason pressed delete. I was deleting something I guess, don't know what. It asked if I wanted to delete the scenario (what?) and immediately went on "ok" (not sure if I pressed enter because i was in the middle of typing, or if I was just tired and auto-clicked on ok).

 

The whole thing, instantly gone. All of it. The mission folder is still there, completely empty. All the scripts, everything. There's no trace. I tried pressing ctrl-z, no avail. I checked the recycle bin, nope, nothing there.

 

I've googled and looked and searched and couldn't find a poor soul with the same fate as mine and some light to cast onto the shadows.

Any hope? Is there anything I can do? Why on earth is this "option"/"feature" even there?  :blink:

 

Edit: So yeah, if you open the editor and click on "open" to open a scenario you get presented with a list. Why does pressing the delete key at this moment pops up a message to "delete the scenario" (presumably the last one loaded) when this option is not even on screen? And then it wipes all the scripts, everything, without even a copy/backup or sending it to the recycle bin? How crazy is this?  :o

[ceeeb 147]

I'm not aware of Arma keeping any hidden copies of editor mission files anywhere.

 

There are many general file recovery tools, but be careful as they rely on you not modifying the state of the drive (ie, don't save or modify any files, don't install anything, run a file recovery program from USB stick), and I'm not sure how well they work with SSD drives.

[luizsilveira 5]

I'm not aware of Arma keeping any hidden copies of editor mission files anywhere.

 

There are many general file recovery tools, but be care as they rely on you not modifying the state of the drive (ie, don't save or modify any files, don't install anything, run a file recovery program from USB stick), and I'm not sure how well they work with SSD drives.

 

Thanks, that's a good tip. It wasn't on an SSD so that might be a good thing.

I ran a program called "Recuva" and seems to have recovered most if not all files. Big relief. The main down side is that no (sub)folders were recovered, so it's a mess. And I ended up with some 15 different "settings.sqf" files that should eventually all go into different folders again.

It'll take a while to sort out, but certainly not nearly as much of a pita as coding everything again.

[Mynock 244]

Does it dump the file straight away? Or does it move it to the recycle bin? That's my go to place to check first, but for all I know Arma just makes the file disappear. I've only lost missions from catastrophic HDD failure from which there was no recovery, but I've never tried recovering a deleted file as you describe.

[ineptaphid 6413]

Does it dump the file straight away? Or does it move it to the recycle bin? That's my go to place to check first, but for all I know Arma just makes the file disappear. I've only lost missions from catastrophic HDD failure from which there was no recovery, but I've never tried recovering a deleted file as you describe.

I dont think it moves to the recycle bin-at least I have never noticed missions etc I have deleted in there.

[Type 0]

I'm sad to say this, but i have the feeling you've lost the scenario completly, and theres no way of recovering it. Best you can do now is, if your up to it, redo the entire thing again.

[Type 0]

Thanks, that's a good tip. It wasn't on an SSD so that might be a good thing.

I ran a program called "Recuva" and seems to have recovered most if not all files. Big relief. The main down side is that no (sub)folders were recovered, so it's a mess. And I ended up with some 15 different "settings.sqf" files that should eventually all go into different folders again.

It'll take a while to sort out, but certainly not nearly as much of a pita as coding everything again.

 

Nevermind didn't see this response.  :wacko:

[luizsilveira 5]

Thanks guys.

 

Yeah, no recycle bin, no. It was gone. But thankfully the file recovery software saved a lot of work.

 

This morning I've made a second run with one called Puran File Recovery (v1.2.1). It's not nearly as powerful as Recuva, but it did restore all the folder structure. Unfortunately about 10 to 20% of the files recovered by Puran are corrupt though (versus 100% recovery rate for Recuva).

 

So after having both recoveries my work will be basically to check file by file for integrity, and if it's broken I'm copying from the Recuva folder and replacing the Puran one. So far so good.

Thanks for all the help, I'm posting this as reference.

 

Edit: Oh wow, nothing can be this easy can it. I just realized that ALL subfolders from ALL my missions in the documents folder are gone. Just gone. No idea which of the programs is the culprit. The mission.sqm is still there, all other files and folders from inside each mission's folder are gone.

Thankfully I have .pbo files of all other missions so at this point I'll probably just wipe the whole folder out and start from scratch (de-pboing the old ones).

[R0adki11 3949]

Thanks guys.

 

Yeah, no recycle bin, no. It was gone. But thankfully the file recovery software saved a lot of work.

 

This morning I've made a second run with one called Puran File Recovery (v1.2.1). It's not nearly as powerful as Recuva, but it did restore all the folder structure. Unfortunately about 10 to 20% of the files recovered by Puran are corrupt though (versus 100% recovery rate for Recuva).

 

So after having both recoveries my work will be basically to check file by file for integrity, and if it's broken I'm copying from the Recuva folder and replacing the Puran one. So far so good.

Thanks for all the help, I'm posting this as reference.

 

Edit: Oh wow, nothing can be this easy can it. I just realized that ALL subfolders from ALL my missions in the documents folder are gone. Just gone. No idea which of the programs is the culprit. The mission.sqm is still there, all other files and folders from inside each mission's folder are gone.

Thankfully I have .pbo files of all other missions so at this point I'll probably just wipe the whole folder out and start from scratch (de-pboing the old ones).

In light of this, you may want to start making backups of your files. I have a few bat files which take backups of folders and put them in another location, saves time later if you need to revert :)

[luizsilveira 5]

In light of this, you may want to start making backups of your files. I have a few bat files which take backups of folders and put them in another location, saves time later if you need to revert :)

 

Yeah, I have backup of everything (well, mostly  :D ). So much so that I had all the other .pbo files, in multiple locations even. That was a big saver too, else it'd have been all lost.

 

But no doubt, the mission I had been currently working on I had no backup yet. I should start making a copy of the mission folder at the end of each session/day.

[davidoss 552]

How did you delete your scenario completely?

I mean with scripts and other files.

I do not knew how to do that while using editor.

[lexx 1390]

Reminds me of me last month-- was running out of free space on c while working with Eden (no idea how that could happen). Got an error message from Windows, thought "well, shit", saved my mission file, closed A3 and handled the situation. After that started up A3 again and.... the mission file was empty. Turned out Eden couldn't save the file while I had no free space on c (for obvious reasons), therefore destroying my work of that day. :> (luckily I run a reposity server, or I'd have lost the file completely.)

Tl;Dr - always backup your files.

[R3vo 2654]

I have my mission folder directly synced with dropbox, that way I can pretty much undo everything. I can only recommend that.

[davidoss 552]

This is not bad idea how did you do that?