Test!

Wow, you guys aren't going to believe how incredibly bad my luck is.  After putting quite a few hours into the forum and my e-mail server, it's getting ready to kick the bucket. 

The server went down today around 4:00pm.  I thought it might be because of the static IP going into effect.  Nope - dying hard drive.

I was able to get the dying drive back up and all of the corrupted data restored.  Everything is running okay (if not a bit slow) but the hard drive has had it.  I have no clue how long it will last before it complete dies.

For what it's worth, the forum is backed up onto my main PC and all of the FTP stuff is on another set of drives, so the only data loss I really need to worry about is my e-mail server, and that's really not a huge deal.  I'm going to order a replacement drive tomorrow (it'll be small, but I'm pretty much broke right now), which most likely won't arrive until Monday of next week at the earliest.  Hopefully the server will continue running until then.  If not...  *shrug*

I just did a full backup of the forum on Monday or Tueday before I started working on the missing posts, and the regular nightly incremental backups are still running as scheduled, so the forum will be fine, even if it goes down for a couple days.

Wow, I can't possibly think of a worse time for this to happen.  The drive is a 120GB Western Digital Caviar IDE, and just last week I had to replace a practically brand new 80GB Western Digital RAID Edition in my main system.  Is Western Digital quality going down the tubes, or what?

-b0b
(...isn't happy.)

Sure, what do you want for it?

I was looking at this drive...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144122

It'd be fine for what I need it for (in fact, a 40GB would be more than sufficient), but I'd have to wait until at least Monday, and I don't know if the forum will last that long.  If I could buy your drive and pick it up tonight or early tomorrow, that would let me work on it tomorrow afternoon when I have no other plans.

-b0b
(...hopes it will last.)

Vaguely.  $50 is fine.  Thanks bud!

-b0b
(..w00t!)

I picked up the new hard drive from Stewie today.  I'm going to try to get a DVD based inventory done tonight and I'll copy the data to the new drive and swap them out tomorrow.

-b0b
(...asks for prayers!)

I finished attaching the two FTP drives and reassembling the server a few minutes ago.  Everything seems to be running just fine.  Hopefully the static IP will be up early this week, and that should be the end of the hiccups!

-b0b
(...just thought he'd mention that.)

I've changed the forum registration process a bit to (hopefully) block all of those stupid spam accounts that keep popping up.  I deleted at least 12 accounts that had popped up since yesterday afternoon, and it's getting worse every day.  The process now works like this...

1)  A new user registers an account.  This account remains "hidden" until step two.
2)  The new user receives an e-mail with a link to an activation page. 
3)  Once they click on the link, their account is activated and they receive another e-mail with a password.
4)  Their account is fully unlocked once they log in for the first time, adding them to the members list and giving them full access.

If a spambot registers with a fake e-mail address, they'll never receive the activation e-mail.  Their account won't show up in the members list or the "newest member" area, and it'll be completely deleted after 48 hours.

-b0b
(...is so glad he won't have to delete any more spambots!)