Install wiped my Hard Drive contents with no warning

Traithbyl · May 2014

Hi

Was anyone else as furious as I was to find the game install offers a choice of Hard drive to install to, but then simply wipes the contents of your hard drive with no warning. When I contacted the company they offered me 7 days free game to to 'compensate' me, all but said it was my fault, but that it was a real problem they are going to fix. If it's a problem you are going to fix then how is it my fault? I call them out to respond to this professionally instead of repeatedly ignoring me in the hope I will go away. A games company has no right to offer an admittedly defective piece of software that can delete a users entire hard drive contents (pictures, art, memories... all gone!!) with no warning whatsoever that it will do this. I appreciate most fans of the game will respond to this in a defensive nature but it's not just me who has been affected by this. Not even an apology is a disgrace!

Teevesnacks · May 2014

I'll believe the game caused this to happen when another 10 people post a thread about it with actual proof

Traithbyl · May 2014

Here's a few to start

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/669684-the-elder-scrolls-online/68950372
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/669684-the-elder-scrolls-online/68950372?page=1
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/69062/warning-elder-scrolls-deletes-all-programs-bug

class101 · May 2014

Wasn't your install path set to a root drive like C:\ ? Because the launcher is known to delete everything in <InstallFolder>

But I agree as a developer myself, when it comes to files deletion, not checking the user possible "mistakes" is a developer mistake

pysgod1978b14_ESO · May 2014

I had no problems myself but mine was digital copy. I rarely do hardcopy anymore. As for it happening, it could have been worse. Anyone familiar with the infamous EvE boot.INI incident years ago? This is just a tiny error with limited people that it happened to.

athena_o2 · June 2014

This happened to me too. ESO is such a pig it filled up my C:// and wouldn't patch any more. 250GB drive with ESO and the OS on it and nothing else. I installed it to my second hard drive, and it wrote over EVERYTHING. And I do mean, EVERYTHING. It's not a virus, the files weren't just moved, trust me it's all gone. I've done multiple drive recoveries and used several forensics tools and it's all been written over. What really sucks is, then my hard drive synced with my cloud drive backups, and wrote over everything with empty files.

All my college photos, totally gone.

All my photos from my time in the military, gone.

All the photos of my girlfriend, gone.

All photos of my brother's wedding, gone.

My professional resumes and evaluations, gone.

All my personal writing, gone.

ZheinLevin · June 2014

THIS. This happened to me as well and I was so pissed

Thank goodness I was able to retrieve important files and the unretrievable ones where stuff I could live without.

SirAndy · June 2014

Programming lesson 1: Your installer/uninstaller should *always* only delete files it created. Never blindly delete a whole folder/path.

Any installation package out there worth their money (like InstallShield for example) keeps a file manifest of every single file that was installed and where so a uninstall won't delete anything other than the application files.

This sort of hacked together home made installer/uninstaller that allows one to specify a root folder and then blindly deletes the whole installation folder without checking is unacceptable!

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · June 2014

Traithbyl wrote: »

Was anyone else as furious as I was to find the game install offers a choice of Hard drive to install to, but then simply wipes the contents of your hard drive with no warning. When I contacted the company they offered me 7 days free game to to 'compensate' me, all but said it was my fault, but that it was a real problem they are going to fix

It was your fault, the installer did precisely what you told it to, it asked you where you wanted to install the game and, not unreasonably like every other software installation I've seen, it assumes to location you tell it to use can be cleared down.

As usual, when you choose to depart from the default it's up to you to make sure you know what you're doing, READ carefully the default to understand the what the installer is going to do and ensure the path you enter conforms to that.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · June 2014

SirAndy wrote: »

Programming lesson 1: Your installer/uninstaller should *always* only delete files it created. Never blindly delete a whole folder/path:(

Wrong!

At installation time there is no history to use, the installer is perfectly at liberty to do precisely what you tell it to do, if you specify C:\ as the installation directory it's fine if the installer wipes it .. YOU TOLD IT TO.

Sure, UNINSTALLERs should only remove stuff the INSTALLER created but the installer is asking for a directory and every installer I've ever used expect this to be usable as it likes.

SirAndy · June 2014

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

Wrong!
At installation time there is no history to use, the installer is perfectly at liberty to do precisely what you tell it to do, if you specify C:\ as the installation directory it's fine if the installer wipes it .. YOU TOLD IT TO.
Sure, UNINSTALLERs should only remove stuff the INSTALLER created but the installer is asking for a directory and every installer I've ever used expect this to be usable as it likes.

I see a bright, albeit short future for you in software development!

Ysne58 · June 2014

This should never have happened. Many people who play games are not sophisticated computer users. There can and should always be a line of code looking for the default folder and if it isn't there, create one.

Dovel · June 2014

athena_o2 wrote: »

This happened to me too. ESO is such a pig it filled up my C:// and wouldn't patch any more. 250GB drive with ESO and the OS on it and nothing else. I installed it to my second hard drive, and it wrote over EVERYTHING. And I do mean, EVERYTHING.

ESO only takes up 31.6 G of space. How can your OS take up 229 G?

danno8 · June 2014

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

Traithbyl wrote: »

Was anyone else as furious as I was to find the game install offers a choice of Hard drive to install to, but then simply wipes the contents of your hard drive with no warning. When I contacted the company they offered me 7 days free game to to 'compensate' me, all but said it was my fault, but that it was a real problem they are going to fix

It was your fault, the installer did precisely what you told it to, it asked you where you wanted to install the game and, not unreasonably like every other software installation I've seen, it assumes to location you tell it to use can be cleared down.

As usual, when you choose to depart from the default it's up to you to make sure you know what you're doing, READ carefully the default to understand the what the installer is going to do and ensure the path you enter conforms to that.

Never before have I seen the bolded part. Installers never ask to wipe data on your drive. In fact they will always tell you there is not enough space and abort if that is the case.

Choosing to go from c:\programfiles(x86) to c:\ should never wipe your c:\ drive contents any more than the first option should wipe your programfiles(x86).

It would make for a messy install on your c:\ for sure, but delete data? Of course not! This is just another program, not a format, not a new OS.

Grizzly_UK · June 2014

This happened to me and I created a thread about it over in the Customer Support - English forum:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/105466/installed-eso-to-custom-folder-and-it-deleted-all-other-content-in-that-folder

The ESO installer is actually set-up to wipe any other content in it's parent folder, something that you are not warned about if you choose a custom install destination! I'm not a novice at installing, I have LOTS of games installed as well as various other programs etc and I have NEVER experienced this happening before!

By some odd coincidence I created my thread about this on the same day as the OP (May 31) and I received the first response from the Customer Support Team on June 15. I won't get into that though as I'm still in discussion with them, suffice to say that things got worse!

Sidney · June 2014

I've seen too many posts where people say this happens. It's scary. I would bring your hard drives to a professional to retrieve your data.

They need to fix this!

Grizzly_UK · June 2014

Sidney wrote: »

I've seen too many posts where people say this happens. It's scary. I would bring your hard drives to a professional to retrieve your data.

They need to fix this!

That's not an option that everyone can choose, data retrieval services can be a bit on the costly side. I'm sure that's something which Zenimax wouldn't be prepared to pay for either, even though it's due to their installer!

Phadin · June 2014

And this is why people keep backups of their data.

lestaudenmaierub17_ESO · June 2014

I think we just found out what really happened to all those emails on Lois Lerner's laptop.