The root cause is the hardware failure. No hardware failure no corruption. That said, looks like MySQL / the BB app is to blame. You'd think stuff would be protected inside transactions and, at worst, this forum just wouldn't work. To corrupt stuff is just silly. But then, MySQL could have functioned perfectly and the file system let us down. Or maybe it's a journalling file system, and the stupid drives didn't flush buffers to the actual disk when they said they did, or maybe... And what about back ups? There shouldn't have been any lossage... just restore from most recent backup. But sooooo many people think backing up table space backs up the database and this just ain't so. *shrug*

Actually, since it was obviously running on Windoze, I'm ready to blame Micro$soft. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, hardware failures will always happen, so we can factor them out of the discussion... <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

But databases can certainly get corrupted without hardware failure and I wouldn't be surprised to find there's a long list of known bugs for this ancient forum. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, if we blame Micro$oft, perhaps the Bill and Melinda Foundation would give Doug several million dollars to make up for it.
<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hey, I'd volunteer to convert ets over to a decent (and recent) CMS, all with freeware on linux. He won't, of course, but it does make me wonder... can I bill it at industry standard rates, and then count it as a deduction?

1- to the administrators, webmasters and the such, congratulations, keep up the great work = this is a great forum.
2- It’s free = it’s great !
3- There are a bunch of great collaborators answering questions, helping everybody out = that’s great !
4- As long as everybody keeps the input positive and the sharp eyed moderators weed out the negative = that’s great that’s great !

My 2c

I like the current setup, forces me to read all the posts. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I know. And I've had files get mangled on a non-raided server when the power supply tanked. Everything that wasn't being accessed on the drive seemed to be fine, everything that people told us they were working with was poofted or looked like it had been chewed on by a t-rex.

I was signed in and idle when the last round of server glitches happened. I had it in the background, and took a break from what I was working on, and the forum was down. Based on my experinces, it is quite possible, if not probably, that is why my "ironsraven" handle and all of it's posts are vapor now.

Dude, it's SQL. SQL is the offspring of Satan and Kthulu, with Loki as midwife. It was corrupt from the moment it started.

<img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />