mistakes you've made, in terms of TF2 game files?

[ProselyteCanti]

So. I tried to play TF2. Tried to join a server, it told me I was running in insecure mode and couldn't join secure servers. Googled it, found these instructions:

*Disable Steam Cloud, exit Steam
*Delete config.cfg file located in "Steam\userdata\*number*\440\remote\cfg"
*Delete your TF2 folder
*Verify game cache
*Defrag game cache
*Run regedit and delete this key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Source\tf
*Run the game and disable multicore rendering

So being the dingus that I am, I went ahead and deleted my Team Fortress 2 folder from my steamapps\common folder. I got a warning message, telling me that it wouldn't all fit in my recycle bin, and the files would have to be deleted from my computer completely. I said okay, and deleted it. It wasn't until moments later, when most files were deleted from the folder, that I'd realized what I'd done. And now all of my Team Fortress 2 files are wiped completely. All of my custom textures, all of the maps I was working on, all the server files, all of it. Gone forever. Gigabytes worth of custom content I was working on. All gone.
I guess the moral of the story is, uh, I'm a complete fucking dingus, and uh, don't delete your Team Fortress 2 folder?

Share your most likely saddening stories of dingus file stuff, if you have dingus file stuff type stories.

 

[radarhead]

Why were all your WIP maps in the TF2 folder??

 

[killohurtz]

Have you tried reinstalling TF2 yet? Your stuff might be synced with Steam Cloud, assuming you had it enabled.

 

[ProselyteCanti]

Have you tried reinstalling TF2 yet? Your stuff might be synced with Steam Cloud, assuming you had it enabled.

I disabled right before I deleted the folder. Not sure if it'll still sync what I had before I disabled it, if I reenable it.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Stop everything. Do not reinstall it. Cancel the reinstall if you already are. Don't move or add any more data to the drive TF2 was on.

Go get this. https://www.piriform.com/recuva. Download it to a drive that TF2 was NOT on. Also install it to a drive TF2 was not on. Fire it up it and see what you can get back.

Deleted files are not erased, they are only forgotten about, and allowed to be overwritten whenever the space gets used. Recovery programs can look at the disc itself rather than listening to what the file system says is there.

If you already reinstalled... I guess you can try it anyway, you might get lucky if you had a big drive with lots of fragmented empty space for the new install to spill into. Custom content doesn't get cloud sync'd, that's really just game saves and such.

 

[killohurtz]

Thanks for catching that. I don't remember when I last reinstalled TF2, but I do seem to remember my maps folder, HUD (and custom folder, by extension) coming with it, though I still had a backup ready. I figured anything else he had saved in there would be synced as well.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

Well the thing is, if you only tell steam to uninstall it, it will uninstall the files steam put there. None of your added files get removed so the new install falls in place next to them. Simply deleting the entire folder is another thing.

 

[ProselyteCanti]

Stop everything. Do not reinstall it. Cancel the reinstall if you already are. Don't move or add any more data to the drive TF2 was on.

Go get this. https://www.piriform.com/recuva. Download it to a drive that TF2 was NOT on. Also install it to a drive TF2 was not on. Fire it up it and see what you can get back.

Deleted files are not erased, they are only forgotten about, and allowed to be overwritten whenever the space gets used. Recovery programs can look at the disc itself rather than listening to what the file system says is there.

If you already reinstalled... I guess you can try it anyway, you might get lucky if you had a big drive with lots of fragmented empty space for the new install to spill into. Custom content doesn't get cloud sync'd, that's really just game saves and such.

I can't thank you enough. I still lost my maps, but I was able to recover all of my textures.

 

[takabuschik]

That's awesome ABS. I know the police are using this method, but I didn't know it's available to the public as a simple free software!
(And my advice: simply back up your files)

 

[A Boojum Snark]

That kind of thing barely counts as computer forensics, it has been around for awhile and is fairly simple because as mentioned, nothing is actually deleted. This is almost akin to turning on "show hidden files" in Windows, they are there - you just can't see them.

Forensics would have the means and software to look for files that have been overwritten with real data, looking for underlying magnetic signatures on the disc. Programs that are designed to erase data do multiple overwrite passes of random data for that reason, to ensure the magnetic ghosts are long gone.
They'd also have things for recovering data from physically damaged discs.

 

[Pocket]

Why were all your WIP maps in the TF2 folder??

That's where VMFs go now. If you're still keeping them in the defunct SDK folder, then you're behind the times (but probably safer than the rest of us). As is the article Canti found, probably.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

The best place is neither. All my stuff is in E:\Mapping. Having one folder makes it super easy to back up that way.

and another thing I thought of, recovering your custom textures/anything would also be super easy if you ever distributed a map with them packed in -- just download it and extract the content.

 

[radarhead]

That's where VMFs go now. If you're still keeping them in the defunct SDK folder, then you're behind the times (but probably safer than the rest of us). As is the article Canti found, probably.

I keep my VMFs in a subfolder of my documents folder.