default settings/re-activation after system reboot question.

[Johansons522]

Hello.

New user of the software here....

I just recently purchased hard Disk Sentinel Pro. v 5.70. I have two questions if I may. For the last couple of days all is running great and the program is fantastic! I have been looking around in settings section and made some minor changes in temperatures and adjusted the report settings for notifications; etc. I would like to know if there is an easy way to reverse all settings back to default just as when I fresh installed the software several days ago.

My second question is that today I rebooted my PC (windows 10), and the main window opened and it informed me to register the software. It was de-activated. Is there any reason this happens? All my disk activity I noticed on the software were gone and only started showing after I re - registered the software. As I understand this is a life-time license and in near future I intend to purchase a new hard drive and in addition due to Windows problems I have experienced, I perform fresh/clean install or reset Windows System 2-3 times per year if needed only. Only on one computer.

I do not want to trigger your server in order to deactivate my purchased license. Is there any way to prevent or fix this issue if after PC reboots the software becomes unregistered? It happened just once but it is a concern to me since I just purchased it few days ago.

Thank you for your time and consideration in assisting me with these two issues.

Respectfully,

[hdsentinel]

Please check the other topic where I answered about how to clear the settings: https://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=13538

Generally Hard Disk Sentinel does not "deactivate" or similar. I'm afraid maybe you set up some settings which caused troubles, especially if you see that not only the license but also previous statistics also reset.
Not sure, but probably you may configured a folder at Configuration -> Advanced Options -> Change folder to store statistics and settings
and then after reboot, this folder may be not accessible/moved (eg. if it is a different disk drive, remote drive or so).
Then it can happen that Hard Disk Sentinel can't read the license information and settings/statistics - so likely this caused that everything "reset".

I can confirm that generally there should be no problem with the license and re-installations if required: you can any time (re)install the software on the same computer. Should be no problem even if the hard disk drive / SSD replaced/changed, the activation server of course allows re-installation and even moving to new system, as it is "normal" that Windows may require reinstallation and/or if the whole system replaced.
Problem could happen only if such reinstallations/activations happen too many times or too frequently - as then the license could be blocked. Then just send the original license code to info (at ) hdsentinel (dot) com so then it can be unblocked.

[forever]

Hello,

I am a long time user of Hard Disk Sentinel and big fan of this software and of storages in general.
I bought Family pack in August this year. I activated on 4 devices, everything was peachy until today.

After an unexpected video driver failure and a hard button restart of Computer, Hard Disk Sentinel show me "Unregistered version, please register".
All the settings are gone(now are like default), temperature for the last 2 weeks are gone and most important HDSentinel.cfg file is gone.
I watched the forum and found the others that have same issues.

I re register the product, but the HDSentinel.cfg still no more, temperature data for the last 2 weeks lost (forever seems). I have on local machine 2 NVME + 1 SSD drive.
I previous made a backup of the settings in the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" and now because that file is no more I cannot event restore settings or data.
For the SSD drive even the SMART history is lost, from what I remember is stored on registry, I didn't reinstall OS.
What can I do to recover settings, history of SSD SMART or temperature history for NVME + SSD for the last 2 weeks?
I had also configured a network QNAP storage, settings are also gone(lost).

Note: All data was saved on system drive, I have checked drive with chkdsk after the restart, no issues are reported.

My configuration: Data is stored in a separate folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData"
HD Sentinel version: PRO 6.20

My questions and Issues:
1. Why HDSentinel.cfg file is no more?
2. Is there any posibility to restore temperature history for NVME, SSD drives, network drives for the last 14 days?
3. Is there any posibilities to restore SSD SMART history data?
4. What can I do to prevent this or to backup data?
5. To backup daily all the files from folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" it will be a pain and storage history of data from your software will be useless to me.

Sorry for my expression, I am frustrated by this event, because I have a lot of experience and try to backup everything, I have also lost 1 year of SMART history of SSD when I registered 1st time in August.

Please advice what can I do to not lose in another moment, data like this. I bought your software specially to keep history of data (SMART and temperature).
This is a disaster for me. I lost confidence that I can use this software and not lose data in time.

Please Help!
Kind regards!

[hdsentinel]

Hello,

Thanks for your message and really sorry for the possible troubles or issue - even if it sounds not really related to Hard Disk Sentinel.

Generally as mentioned previously, Hard Disk Sentinel does not clear/discard/forget the license details and/or the statistics, logs or any similar.
It designed exactly to be "safe" (to store different kind of information in different files) exactly to prevent such / similar (eg. prevent loss of settings/statistics/license etc. if a single file which would contain everything would be removed/damaged).

To be honest, I'm afraid I have no idea what could cause that in this case the details lost - and why/how exactly the last 2 weeks of the statistics lost.

Maybe after the driver issue / hard reset, Windows performed an automatic system restore which restored to the last saved state (?)
Not sure - but I can only imagine this situation if an older data files / status/statistics files restored (and without the license).

As I read, you configured Hard Disk Sentinel to store everything in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData
folder (probably by using the Configuration -> Advanced Options -> Automatically save disk test results to folder option)?
It is possible that Windows (due to the above mentioned system restore) "simply" removed the file which configured THIS setting (HDSentinel.RDI in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel folder) - and this is why Hard Disk Sentinel does not "know" where to find the license/statistics.
If you configured this two weeks ago - then there is good chance that the previous details displayed now. You can check: if you used the above mentioned option AND you do not see HDSentinel.RDI file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel folder - then probably this is the case.

I suggest to please inspect the C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData folder, to verify the most recent date/time of the files. If the files have date from today (or yesterday) then there is good chance that they are there, so all we need is to configure the above mentioned re-direction again. Please let me know if this is the case, but DO NOT try to use the Configuration -> Advanced Options -> Automatically save disk test results to folder option now - because it may initialise the folder and can clear the existing status/details).


> 1. Why HDSentinel.cfg file is no more?

There is no HDSentinel.cfg at all. Not really sure what do you mean "no more". Did you ever create it?

HDSentinel.cfg file is a backup file of the current configuration (all settings, statistics, logs, etc.) which created if you manually use the Configuration -> Update -> Backup Configuration, then you can specify where to save this HDSentinel.cfg file.

You did not mention that you may used this function, so I assume that you never saved the actual configuration, so (as expected) HDSentinel.cfg file never created.

This file is used to backup everything and then restore on a new installation (eg. on a planned re-installation).


> 2. Is there any posibility to restore temperature history for NVME, SSD drives, network drives for the last 14 days?

Would be nice to know what exactly could cause the issue and what happened with the previous data files.
If the previous data files overwritten / restored (eg. by system restore function of Windows) then I'm afraid not.
But it is possible that the details there, just the folder setting may be somehow deleted/lost - so we can re-use them.


> 3. Is there any posibilities to restore SSD SMART history data?

Please see above.


> 4. What can I do to prevent this or to backup data?

Generally it is good idea to configure a folder to store the statistics and then periodically backup that folder.
Not sure, but it is possible that Windows System Restore may attempt to recover ALL files/folders under the Program Files folder, so maybe a better idea would be to configure a folder completely independently from the Program Files folder. Just an idea.


> 5. To backup daily all the files from folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" it will be
> a pain and storage history of data from your software will be useless to me.

Not really sure why pain. Even with Hard Disk Sentinel Pro, you can very easily create a backup project to backup the whole folder every day to a different folder - and even by keeping the last N complete backups, so then you'll be surely protected.

For this, please open Configuration -> Operations page. There you can use the New button to create a new backup project, select the "Transfer files and folders" as project type.
In the bottom right corner of this tab, by the Configure button, you can specify which folder to backup and to where - and in this window, on the Project Options panel, you may enable the "Use the current date as folder name and keep the last N complete archives" option for the above mentioned added safety. You may use other options too on this page - then click OK to close this window.
In the main Hard Disk Sentinel Configuration -> Operations page, click on the Schedule tab to specify when this project should start on any days to save (backup) the complete folder (so all status/logs/details etc.)

(personally I do this for important files/data too and keep the last 100 complete backups just to check back if required).


Really sorry for the possible troubles. I can understand what you feel and I already plan additional protection(s) to perform automatic backup / save of configuration to avoid similar in a future version. Just there are things which we may not able to control, for example if something else (eg. Windows) may delete / remove / modify some of the data files.

[forever]

Hello,

Thank you for your fast answer.
The file HDSentinel.RDI was not removed, is on "c:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\" folder.
The file HDSentinel.RDI is the same from the moment Sentinel was installed and is pointing to the correct folder:
> [HDSentinel]
> DataFolder=C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData

1. I have created a backup after all the settings were done, to be sure that I can restore settings and data in case of disaster. Sadly for me I saved "HDSentinel.cfg" file only on "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" folder and forgot to backup it to external storage.
I mention it in my 1st message: "I previous made a backup of the settings in the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" and now because that file is no more I cannot event restore settings or data"
2. Folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" wasn't deleted or restored, there are old data in that folder.
The file "HDSentinel.sta" seems to be reset somehow, I have an old backup and it is 89K, now is 2.2K
If I'm not mistaken, in "HDSentinel.sta" is stored temperatures history for all drives
3. I have no restore point previous to today 2024-10-03, but I'm not excluding the possibility of automatic Windows restore point created from time to time and maybe yesterday it was used as a disaster recovery. The restore point is changed so we cannot confirm that idea.
5. It will involve a backup scenario: 1. another local drive where to create backups + 2. external storage to copy local backup
Pain is that I didn't configure any disaster recovery on my system (because I'm not trusting any storage device on this moment and don't want to copy to 2 different devices to be sure = my bad).

My frustration come from the fact that I forgot to save HDSentinel.cfg outside of system drive.
Now I need to go and make all the settings manually )

I will take your advice and backup my "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSData" folder to other device(partition), maybe I will sync that folder to outside of my computer to be more protected for disasters.
Thank you again for your wonderful software and support.

By the way I'm a passionate software developer myself, with knowledge on the entire domain: hardware, IT, security, monitoring.
I had configured Integration > Remote Control > Enable Status > HTTP Connection port.
I also have a Zabbix Agent that Is integrated with SMART and collect metrics and working pretty well.

Kind regards!