Just for reference.
 
The "free" partition retriever is not free...
 
Took 6 hours to analyze. Then offered to process the retrieval if you send money and register for the paid version. Bastards...
 
Piecing the PC back together. More slim and trim. Got the vst effects together minus Evatintide Ultra Channel which is caught up in an Ilock denial  loop. Good plug, but reminds me why I avoid anything requiring Ilock.
 
Two days and no respomse from the company on how to reactivate it.
 
Next, Kontact reinstall. Allah help me in my dark hour.
 
John

I feel for you man, that's an awful thing to happen. I've lost everything before and it stings. It's like getting mugged, you keep thinking about it for days afterwards and wincing. I hope you get everything up and running again. I'm pretty sure you will. There will come a time when you see the bright side, which always results from installing everything from scratch. As you say, more slim and trim. I always let things get out of hand on my machines, lots of disorganization and never being 100% sure where everything is. Piecing it all back together methodically really helps tidy everything up in your mind. 

Thanks Sharke,
 
About 70% back up to speed with a cleaner machine. 3 days of hell when I thought I had the time off to snort glue and watch the sunset.
 
Working for the man every night and day, wanting to get back to the machine so I can install something else that was lost in the melt down. Pound a couple beers before sunrise tomorrow and hope I made some progress.
 
Got three mellotrons installed. Ticket in to Eventide to redo the virtual Ilok nightmare so I can run Ultra Channel again.
 
Life is good, I think...
 
Got to be smarter in the backup program.
 
Hope this finds you well.
 
John

Now thanks for the reminder about Ultra Channel, I had forgotten I had it! Can't understand why it got left by the wayside because it's such an awesome plug...yeah you gotta get that baby up and running again. 

Beauty about Ultra Channel.
 
It allows tight and overkill compression with a credible noise gate that beats down the chatter on recoil. Feed this into something like S-Gear, Headcase, P&M stomp boxes...hard to separate out the sound from a live rig pressed to melt down. Maybe even better.
 
The pitch shifter detune is also excellent. Hope they can sort out the multi level licensing mess they dumped on me. Just want to run the plugin without having to hire a lawyer to sort it out.
 
John
 
 
 

Days in the trenches trying to get some reconstruction of a workable DAW.
 
Hard battle with NI Kontakt over multiple errors in the reactivation process. Actually, not a battle yet because have received confirmation of a ticket but no response. These guys are cool and helpful even though it's been a week this time around. Just want to get Kontakt 5 and the libraries running again. Everything is screwed up on multiple levels in a nightmare of reactivation blocks.
 
Respect again for Cakewalk's unconstipated registration requirements. Model we have to support while everything is trending toward call response activation and subscription models.
 
Wanted ZTA on the new disc and flew through activation without a problem. Thanks Cake.
 
Funny how the industry goes. My Sonar and plugin licenses are as good as in Fort Knox as far as sharing and piracy is concerned. Paid good hard earned moral cash and respect the license agreement.
 
Kontakt... Could cut the misery short and download any number of cracks to get me running again in a New York minute. Trying to do it by the book this time, but the loss of time cannot be recovered.
 
Up and running except for Kontakt. Maybe hear from them next week.
 
John
 
 

Glad you got it worked out John. Hope the Kontakt thing don't take too long.

I have found NI email suport wanting. Get them on the phone and they are very helpful.

Thanks guys.
 
Phone call next.

Friends,
 
Reporting back from the trenches.
Ancient XP rig back together, cut down to some balance between what is needed and mess of excess plugins before the crash.
 
Some saint here advised that backup has to be in two locations. Done that on two external hard drives. Since I'm in a Tsunami zone, should probably send one of the backups to my sister in flat land Texas.
 
Other off topic, did you guts see the latest Music Radar lineup of their opinion, best free vst and vsti plugs for 2014?  Thought I had them all, but some gems in the vsti realm I missed. Great free synths. Some require getting deeper into the website or KRV to get preset banks.
 
http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/...-synths-615790
 
Peace to all,
 
John