Lost Building Log---Help!

Can somebody help me with a situation I have? I was using Kitlog to document the building of my RV-9A, complete with pictures, etc. I have about 739 hours in so far and have completed the empennage, wings, and part of the fuselage. Two weeks ago I had a MAJOR computer disaster (I'm writing from my new computer) and lost my entire log of my building thus far. I had a computer tech try to recover the data but the file was too corrupted for the Kitlog program to open up. No, I did not keep a separate back-up on removable media. I had a back-up in another location on the drive but that was toast also. My main concern now is what can I expect from the FAA when I go to them missing the first 739 hours and all the pictures with me in them???

I am just sick about this, I can't tell you how much other personal stuff I lost. I've called myself a dumba-- enough so please take pity and don't reply "you should've backed it up dumba--".

So does anybody have any experience with this kind of situation and can offer some words of advice and encouragement??? I would be most grateful.

Bruce Peters
Bakersfield, CA
RV-9A, fuselage

I don?t know your exact problem but I accidentally formatted my backup drive that had my life on it. I searched the net trying to find help and I was pointed to http://www.quetek.com They let you download the software for free and it will tell you what it can recover, then if you want to you give them $50 and they unlock the software so you can get your stuff back. All I can say is this worked for me and I got back 100% of my data back, well worth it for me =)

Thanks KC, I'll take a look and let you know how it works out.

help from developers, Microsoft or data recovery specialists

You might also try either:-

1. Contact the developers; they might have tools that can recover a partial database.

2. Contact Microsoft to see if they have a tool that can recover a partial database. I believe Kitlog is based on a Microsoft Access database.

3. Contact a data recovery specialist that deals specifically with database recovery.

UPDATE: I just put the following search into google and came up with multiple hits for Access database recovery:-

http://www.google.com/search?q=access+database+corrupt+recovery&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8

Check out these guys:-

http://www.accessdatabaserepair.com/

and maybe these guys:-

http://www.msaccessrepair.com/


Let us know how you get on.

Dont fret.
Actually no pictures are required. All that is required is that you provide evidence that you did the work and that evidence is satisfactory to the DAR. THis can be done through conversation, notes on a napkin, or what ever. You dont need all that fancy log stuff.

Recover what you can, rewrite some basic items in a notebook. and press on.

Best,

There are labs that can recover your hard drive data. Many of them have free evaluations and no charge policies if they can't recover the data. If your drive experienced a physical crash or even loss of the onboard logic computer your only hope is sending it to a recovery lab. The recovery software you get on-line is generally only good if you've deleted something you shouldn't have, not if there exists a physical failure in the drive. There are quite a few of these recovery companies on-line.

My company experienced a failure last year and we sent the drive off to one of these companies. It's all about how much the data is worth to you. If I remember correctly the price was around $300.00. Give some of them a call and see if they can help you. If not...as Kahuna said don't worry too much about it.

Ive started just making rough date notes in the margins of the build instructions more for sentimental reasons but it could also serve as a backup log.

I would guess that you have some scratches in the manual which may help prove you did the build??

Here's another recovery app with a free trial:
http://www.r-studio.com
I used it a few months ago after a hard drive crash. The drive was unreadable by Windows but this software recovered everything I needed. Hope this helps.

I AM NOT 100% SURE BUT I THINK THAT IF YOU WERE POSTING IT AND THEN DOWNLOADING IT TO THE WEB ON KITLOGS WEB SITE YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO RECOVER IT FROM THERE WEB SIGHT.

THis can be done through conversation, notes on a napkin, or what ever. You dont need all that fancy log stuff.

Click to expand...

Kahuna is right.

Get a calendar and go back over your last several months of construction and jot down to the best of your ability what you did on what date and then keep doing so. This is not a pilot log and there are no guidelines or precise requirements. The pictures are really more for you down the line when you are performing maintenance or helping others build the same item. Also useful when entering shows as they apparently get extra points.

My DAR visited twice briefly during construction and never glanced at my log or photos on either of those visits nor on the final inspection. He was real thorough in looking the plane over as well as the forms made a few good suggestions and then said go fly.

For my repairmans cert I just mailed the application with a copy of the airworthiness cert, registration, and drivers license to my local FSDO.

As Kahuna said you just gotta convince em you did the lion's share of the work which is something the DAR can figure out in the 1st 3 minutes of casual conversation with you.

Start a New Hard Copy Log Now

Start a new hard copy log now. Detail to the best of your ability what you have done including the start date, a narative description of of your work to this point, and photographs of the current state of construction to substantiate the description and state exactly what happened and sign and date the entries and photos then continue on with at least some form of handwritten notes and photographs of your progress. Include photos of you doing work in the album correlated in some way to the manual log and you will not have any trouble.

You cannot depend on a negligent FAA Official or DAR down the line when you want your plane to be cleared to fly and you certified to maintain it. When I went into the Long Beach FAA office to apply for my Repairman Certificate they were very careful in going over the log and the photos. They are reasonable but conscientious people with a serious responsibility that probably don't know you from Adam.

As far as recovery is concerned, if you are going to some computer service source to recover you log and they haven't bought into salvaging your data whatever it takes, you probably will not be successful. It will be a big job that will probably require more than running some canned software. If you find that the whole thing is not recoverable intact then one has to consider extracting coherent parts such and images and text and reconstructing in another form perhaps. When you have what you can recover, print a hard copy.

This is how the 21st Century history will be lost to future generations by the way.

Bob Axsom

BruceP said:

Can somebody help me with a situation I have? I was using Kitlog to document the building of my RV-9A, complete with pictures, etc. I have about 739 hours in so far and have completed the empennage, wings, and part of the fuselage. Two weeks ago I had a MAJOR computer disaster (I'm writing from my new computer) and lost my entire log of my building thus far. I had a computer tech try to recover the data but the file was too corrupted for the Kitlog program to open up. No, I did not keep a separate back-up on removable media. I had a back-up in another location on the drive but that was toast also. My main concern now is what can I expect from the FAA when I go to them missing the first 739 hours and all the pictures with me in them???

I am just sick about this, I can't tell you how much other personal stuff I lost. I've called myself a dumba-- enough so please take pity and don't reply "you should've backed it up dumba--".

So does anybody have any experience with this kind of situation and can offer some words of advice and encouragement??? I would be most grateful.

Bruce Peters
Bakersfield, CA
RV-9A, fuselage

Click to expand...

What EXACTLY happened to your computer? Frankly, most "techs" are useless for anything more complicated than setting up a printer.

Photos Lost Too?

I use KitLog too and know the photos associated are found in a seperate file in my computer from KitLog. I know this sounds elementary, but are you sure that portion of your computer was lost too? Hope this helps.

Slightly off topic but this is a vote for web page based logs. You are not only sharing your experience with others but by placing items on a web page you generally get three or four levels of backup. One is your original on your home computer, second is the actual web page, third is the service providers automated back up system (if they have one and most do) and the final but not so reliable is if someone else really liked your stuff and spent a fair bit of time viewing your web page then you have someone to corroborate your efforts.

I know that doesn't help now but it's something to think about for the future and for the rest of us.

Thanks all!

Hi all,
Thanks for your quick replies and suggestions. I will be trying several of your ideas. I have already uploaded my corrupt kitlog.mdb file to a access file repair company and am awaiting their response (thanks Jeff from NZ).

For those who would like to know what happened more in detail I can't exactly say other than help and tips I got in trying to recover a failure in my old computer didn't exactly help and I ended up with a deleted partition that apparently was the key to everything. Once Windows XP was reloaded everything was gone. My Norton GoBack didn't work nor did any of the Windows recovery tools I now am more familiar with than I wanted to be. Suffice it to say that I now wish the advice I got was "STOP NOW and take your hard drive out and stick it in another computer that works!"

Once I see whether my Kitlog file can be recovered I may try other suggestions/companies to retrieve other parts of my life (and over 4000 pictures) that I would like to have back. Again, I appreciate all your help, this has really been a tough lesson.

Bruce

Hope it goes ok...

Thanks for the update Bruce, and I hope you some if not all of it back. As you have found out the hard way, prevention is way better than cure. However, when disaster does strike it is absolutely essential that you don't do things to make it worse. First and foremost with hard disk issues, is to take a full backup/copy of the raw disk prior to doing anything like installing software or re-loading the operating system. There are many tools out there that can do this. Following the backup, you now have carte blanche to work on the problem, and again, many tools can recover hard disks that have been formatted and re-partitioned even several times. We do this for customers a couple of times a year. When even those tools don't work then sending the disk to a specialist data recovery agent can usually get at least some of it back.

Data loss is very frustrating, and can come with a huge cost either to business or on a personal level. Most people get bit sooner or later, and I'm no stranger to that either, despite working in the industry and advising others of Disaster Recovery and IT Security . We do learn though, and if I lose data now I probably wouldn't be even slightly bothered, because almost nothing short of a thermo-nuclear strike in my home town is likely to leave me data-less, and then I'd be dead anyway

Cheers,

Best wishes

I feel for you brother.

One of my managers thought he was backing up all his work to our server and later found out that he was doing it wrong, had a big crash on his local computer,

Allot of very important long term records were on his disc drive, and it was in a deep doo doo condition.

TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS LATER!

We got it ALL back, and I gave him new and functional backup instructions along with some redundant automatic stuff.

Enough about work.

I have a big War birds calender and each day I work on my project I write down a simple summary of the work performed and how much time that I spent doing it.

I now have a stack of them in my toolbox drawer. Log requirement met, and aside the possibility of fire its pretty safe (no disc crash).

I still do the picture and web thing www.gen-aircraft-hardware.com/toms/plane_proj.asp but thats just for showing folks what my hobby looks like and helping me see progress.

Have fun and .......

FYI re: good disk recovery utilities - Acronis Disk Director seems to work pretty well.

For next time

You have done everything you can and you have worried enough about it. When you make that first flight, the bad rivet burried in the empenage, the scratch that made you sick to your stomache on a wing skin, and all of the other things that you worried about disappear.
Keep building on.

send me a PM

BruceP said:

Hi all,
Thanks for your quick replies and suggestions. I will be trying several of your ideas. I have already uploaded my corrupt kitlog.mdb file to a access file repair company and am awaiting their response (thanks Jeff from NZ).


Bruce

Click to expand...

Bruce,

If the other options don't work, send me a PM. If you are willing to send the hard drive to me, I may be able to recover the information.
No charge.