Deleted the entire Vault..!!!

[joelhansell]

Hello,

Yesterday i was cleaning up the files on the server which contains the ADMS/Vault. Within a folder i'd aptly named "Vault" contained my companies design and model data which we've been using for about 5 months.

I had some microsoft issues with Vault but other than that it's no been to bad. During my "file management" purge i noticed a folder which i'd seen previously but paid little attention to. The folder is labeled "000" and has approx 10-15 sub folders named the same and then branches off sporadically into numbers which had little meaning to me.

Now i'm sure reading this your advice is going to be questions like "did you back up" or "did you not know what those folders were for" and i love the stating of the obvious as the next person but let's just say hind sights a hell of a thing for now 🙂

I checked each of the folders named "000" and below for any files and i couldn't find anything and when right clicked, the properties contained 0 bytes. Now i'm sure the skilled IT person is rolling there eyes right now but let's stay on topic.

I deleted the folders thinking they were meaningless.

After some intial confusion with a few new Vista machines that were being installed during my clean up we realised this wasn't a cancel or allow problem that was preventing the entire design team from accessing the Vault but it seems those "000" folder heirachy had something to do with all the models in the Vault.

After a discussion with the Autodesk reseller support dude, he's indicated that i've deleted my companies entire design/model data which were some how contained with in those 0 byte "000" folders.

Now my boss right now is asking me what has happend and i must say i'm pretty curious myself but i can't give him an answer becasue i don't know.

1. How a folder which contains nothing can have such disasterous ramifications when deleted without even a "are you sure you want to delete this folder becasue if you do you'll probably loose you job" message and

2. Why create a program called Vault which can be easily deleted in one foul swoop by a lamen fool ie. ME

i can't access a single model that was securily kept in the Vault and two, i deleted the folder in the server from my pc so it's in no recycle bin and as previously mentioned no back up exist - don't say it i already know 🙂

So please please please if anyone has any unobvious and pro-active advice on retreiveing or knows the wherabouts of our model data could you please give me some advice because i'm a little lost at the moment.

Also some information on what those folders mean would be advantages for future information and don't worry the IT department is being torn to shreds for information as to why the server was not backed up at this time.

Help me God

Joel Message was edited by: Discussion Admin

[Anonymous]

ROFLMAO!
Just move to another country and start all over with a new name.

[joelhansell]

Guys,

I still have all the models copied on local drives but i've lost the traceability of the Vault - technically i haven't lost anything but the ability to use that Vault - I've created another Vault and migrated all the files i lost accross but it's lost some of the traceability - I'd still like to find a resolution to this to prevent it happening again - I think the "000" folder heirachy may be a fault - any real thoughts..??

[Anonymous]

Check out...... Active File Recovery 7.3 STOP! do not do anything on the
drive where you deleted the files. File Recovery should help you if the
locations were not overwritten. The program may be purchased at:

http://www.file-recovery.net/

I just completely recovered about 220 GB from a drive that became corrupted.
Saved my life!

--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr.
AIP 2008 SP2, AIP 2009 PcCillin AV
HP zv5000 AMD64 2GB
Geforce Go 440, Driver: .8185
XP Pro SP2, Windows XP Silver Theme
http://teknigroup.com
wrote in message news:5936301@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello,

Yesterday i was cleaning up the files on the server which contains the
ADMS/Vault. Within a folder i'd aptly named "Vault" contained my companies
design and model data which we've been using for about 5 months.

I had some microsoft issues with Vault but other than that it's no been to
bad. During my "file management" purge i noticed a folder which i'd seen
previously but paid little attention to. The folder is labeled "000" and has
approx 10-15 sub folders named the same and then branches off sporadically
into numbers which had little meaning to me.

Now i'm sure reading this your advice is going to be questions like "did you
back up" or "did you not know what those folders were for" and i love the
stating of the obvious as the next person but let's just say hind sights a
hell of a thing for now 🙂

I checked each of the folders named "000" and below for any files and i
couldn't find anything and when right clicked, the properties contained 0
bytes. Now i'm sure the skilled IT person is rolling there eyes right now
but let's stay on topic.

I deleted the folders thinking they were meaningless.

After some intial confusion with a few new Vista machines that were being
installed during my clean up we realised this wasn't a cancel or allow
problem that was preventing the entire design team from accessing the Vault
but it seems those "000" folder heirachy had something to do with all the
models in the Vault.

After a discussion with the Autodesk reseller support dude, he's indicated
that i've deleted my companies entire design/model data which were some how
contained with in those 0 byte "000" folders.

Now my boss right now is asking me what happend and i must say
i'm pretty curious myself but i can't give him an answer becasue i don't
know.

1. How a folder which contains nothing can have such disasterous
ramifications when deleted without even a "are you sure you want to delete
this folder becasue if you do you'll probably loose you job" message and

2. Why create a program called Vault which can be easily deleted in one foul
swoop by a lamen fool ie. ME

i can't access a single model that was securily kept in the
Vault and two, i deleted the folder in the server from my pc so it's in no
recycle bin and as previously mentioned no back up exist - don't say it i
already know 🙂

So please please please if anyone has any unobvious and pro-active advice on
retreiveing or knows the wherabouts of our model data could you please give
me some advice because i'm a little lost at the moment.

Also some information on what those folders mean would be advantages for
future information and don't worry the IT department is being torn to shreds
for information as to why the server was not backed up at this time.

Help me God

Joel

[schneik-adsk]

The data is gone. Even if you tried to run an undelete application there is a good chance some files would not be found and the vault file store would not be in sync with the server. This is not Vault's "fault."

The folders you "found" were located on the vault server machine. They were in a folder called Vault Filestore which is a good indication of its purpose. Some of those folders did have contents and those contents are important.

The Managing your data guide gives some pretty good suggestions about limiting access to vault server machines to protect against just this type of thing. Any Vault management you might need to do can be done through the management application.

I feel your pain but there are some actions that we simply can not protect against. Backup. When in doubt backup.

-Kevin Schneider
Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

wrote in message news:5936301@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello,

Yesterday i was cleaning up the files on the server which contains the
ADMS/Vault. Within a folder i'd aptly named "Vault" contained my companies
design and model data which we've been using for about 5 months.

I had some microsoft issues with Vault but other than that it's no been to
bad. During my "file management" purge i noticed a folder which i'd seen
previously but paid little attention to. The folder is labeled "000" and has
approx 10-15 sub folders named the same and then branches off sporadically
into numbers which had little meaning to me.

Now i'm sure reading this your advice is going to be questions like "did you
back up" or "did you not know what those folders were for" and i love the
stating of the obvious as the next person but let's just say hind sights a
hell of a thing for now 🙂

I checked each of the folders named "000" and below for any files and i
couldn't find anything and when right clicked, the properties contained 0
bytes. Now i'm sure the skilled IT person is rolling there eyes right now
but let's stay on topic.

I deleted the folders thinking they were meaningless.

After some intial confusion with a few new Vista machines that were being
installed during my clean up we realised this wasn't a cancel or allow
problem that was preventing the entire design team from accessing the Vault
but it seems those "000" folder heirachy had something to do with all the
models in the Vault.

After a discussion with the Autodesk reseller support dude, he's indicated
that i've deleted my companies entire design/model data which were some how
contained with in those 0 byte "000" folders.

Now my boss right now is asking me what the hell has happend and i must say
i'm pretty curious myself but i can't give him an answer becasue i don't
know.

1. How a folder which contains nothing can have such disasterous
ramifications when deleted without even a "are you sure you want to delete
this folder becasue if you do you'll probably loose you job" message and

2. Why create a program called Vault which can be easily deleted in one foul
swoop by a lamen fool ie. ME

Now if your imagination eludes you i'm in deep deep SH*t at the moment
because one, i can't access a single model that was securily kept in the
Vault and two, i deleted the folder in the server from my pc so it's in no
recycle bin and as previously mentioned no back up exist - don't say it i
already know 🙂

So please please please if anyone has any unobvious and pro-active advice on
retreiveing or knows the wherabouts of our model data could you please give
me some advice because i'm a little lost at the moment.

Also some information on what those folders mean would be advantages for
future information and don't worry the IT department is being torn to shreds
for information as to why the server was not backed up at this time.

Help me God

Joel


You do not say so can we enquire as to your position within the
company...........designer, manager, IT.

[coviepresb1647]

Joel does have a valid point in his articles 1 and 2. Autodesk needs to make people aware of this 0 KB folder (seemingly nothing in it) if major implications occur if deleted. A folder with nothing should have nothing to affect the system or vault if deleted or changed. Autodesk needs to do a better job in file directories and configuration.

[coviepresb1647]

Who cares what his position is?! Regardless of his position, he made a mistake and is trying to rectify it.

[coviepresb1647]

Joel,

I am sorry that I do not know enough about Inventor to recommend a possible solution other than what others have already mentioned. Crying out to God as you are doing helps, and I'll also say a prayer to Him for you.

[Anonymous]

OK so you're not going to another country. If you ONLY deleted the folder
with 0 bytes you could try creating a vault on your workstation, copying the
folder you deleted and pasting it back into the file structure in your
server VaultFileStore.

[Anonymous]

wrote in message news:5936930@discussion.autodesk.com...
Who cares what his position is?! Regardless of his position, he made a
mistake and is trying to rectify it.

wwowooooooooooo..........so help him then...........if you can

[coviepresb1647]

OBE

[coviepresb1647]

Joel,

Any word on how this is resolving?

[KendredCooper]

Joel,
First off, I hate to hear that you are in this situation. I can't provide a solution or work-around for this as none, other than what Dennis suggested, exists. I would like to try to answer some of your questions though.

"Why create a program called Vault which can be easily deleted in one foul swoop by a lamen fool ie. ME"

The whole thought process behind Vault is security from the CAD users. When implemented in a network environment, typically, the CAD users do not have access to the server system that houses the ADMS and Vault Filestore (the 000 folders). The reason that the folder names and file names contained in those "000" folders are so unexplanatory is so that no one, without knowledge of what they're looking at" can gain access to the server and deliberately delete those files, thereby hurting the company - think of a ticked off employee who just got their pink slip, i.e. sabotage.

Now, as far as accidental deletion, well, that is what the backups are for. I would hope that during the Vault Implementation your company went through, that the Reseller AE who did it, ran through the maitenance of the Vault Filestore with your company's IT dept. Basically, IT does not ever need to do any maintenance on the Vault Filestore as it is controlled/done by a Vault Administrator which is a CAD User. The maintenance is done remotely through the CAD users Vault Explorer interface and it is done via an intelligent purge command so that no files are removed, only versions of those files.

Again, I hate to hear that this has happened to you and I wish that there was a work-around or it, but, no such luck.

It is a good question of what your position is as, this type of maintenance, from a Vault standpoint, should only be done by the CAD user from the CAD station and not the server in IT. If you are IT, were you informed of any of the Vault setup and maintenance procedures that were outlined during the implementation by the reseller (a valid question in your current position)? Or was your implementation done by your company without the help or guidance of your Autodesk Reseller?

My only advice that I could give is to try Dennis's suggestion and hope that it retrieves all of the lost data. Message was edited by: KCooper

[Anonymous]

"I feel your pain but there are some actions that we simply can not protect against. Backup. When in doubt backup."

Kevin,
I respectfully disagree with the idea that more couldn't be done to protect against this sort of thing. Please consider turning Joel's mishap into an oportunity to improve the product. The real issue here, as I see it, is the Vault Client has no indication as to whether a backup has ever been done, when it was last done or if that back up was successful, etc.

Therefore the majority of Inventor and AutoCAD users have no idea that their data is not being backed up. They take it on faith that IT is backing up the server and all is well. And of course we know that a standard windows backup can destroy the Vault data too right?

Vault, with all of it's many prompts, warnings and confirmation dialogs has absolutely nothing to warn that the data is not being backed up. What's worse is that Vault has no backup built in, it's all done kind of as an afterthought, outside of the Vault.

I would like to see:
1) the ADMS console come with an automatic backup, built in, that displays the backup location, schedule, and last run date right there in the console.
2) the Vault Client, and maybe even the Vault addin for Inventor, report the status of the last good backup.

"This is not Vault's "fault."'
I kind of think it is, at least a little bit.

[Anonymous]

I don't have much more to add except to say that the "000" folder did NOT
contain 0 bytes. It contained every file from the vault, so it was probably
very large.

So why did Windows say that it was 0 bytes large? When you see the
properties for a folder, Windows doesn't instantly know the size. Windows
has to scan all the subdirectories and total all of the file sizes. This
usually takes a few minutes, so Windows shows you a running total. Try it
out on your "Program Files" folder to see what I mean. If you are getting
properties on a network path, the total takes longer. There folder
structure under "000" goes deep before it hits any files, so my guess is
that you closed the properties window before the operating system ran into
any files.

Moral of the story: Wait a few minutes before deciding that a folder is 0
bytes large.


Doug Redmond
Software Engineer, Autodesk Inc.

[Anonymous]

Doug if the folder shown were to be deleted (this one really is empty) would
this cause ADMS to fail or show 0 files since the full directory structure
isn't there? If so would restoring this empty folder with sub-folders fix
the problem? (assuming the folders below it containing files were still
there)


"Doug Redmond (Autodesk)" wrote in
message news:5947129@discussion.autodesk.com...
I don't have much more to add except to say that the "000" folder did NOT
contain 0 bytes. It contained every file from the vault, so it was probably
very large.

[Anonymous]

Sorry but I don't understand your question. You say that folder
000/000/000/000/000/000 is empty but later on imply that there are files
below it. Perhaps you are thinking that there is some kind of relationship
between the file store folders and the folders within the Vault. That is
not the case. The two folder structures have nothing to do with each other.

In general I wouldn't recommend deleting any of the file store folders or
sub folders even if you are certian that they are empty. ADMS stores data
in two places, the database and the file store, and those two places need to
be in sync. If you start modifying the file store, there is a high
likelihood that you will bring things out to sync.
If you believe that there are a lot of empty folders which are causing poor
performance or wasting space, log an issue with product support. Don't
attempt to clean things yourself.


Doug Redmond
Software Engineer, Autodesk Inc.

[Anonymous]

In my image the indicated 000 folder is empty but the folders below it, (not
nested within it) aren't. In this case 005 & 006 are the only folders
containing files. You stated the file structure & database need to be in
sync so I assume that deleting the empty folder will cause ADMS to throw an
error or just show 0 files. I'm just curious if he did in fact delete only
an empty folder, would restoring that empty folder (with all of it's
sub-folders) fix the problem or would permanent database damage occur when
ADMS couldn't find the file structure?

[Vlad Makarov]

"In general I wouldn't recommend deleting any of the file store folders or sub folders even if you are certain that they are empty. "

Autodesk shouldn't have to make idiot proof software.