Long story short, my hard drive was corrupted and ALL my files were wiped out.
I used a file recovery program and have access to most of my files but there are no names or extensions. Just the file name sequence the program generated. There's a few hundred thousand files.
I have only a few sketches that I had completed. They were all uploaded to boards.
Can I take the code off the boards and save it to edit it? I'd hate to start from scratch and I'm really not thinking opening a few hundred thousand files is a better option.
One code, in particular was for almost every pin on an AT Mega so it's a very big code.
Yes, I know I should have had it backed up, and I did, but the thumb drive I had it all on is missing.
No big problem. Use "grep" or a file search tool to look through all the files for lines that contain recognizable character strings like "Serial.print". Those files will be Arduino programs or contain related information.
Those are good suggestions.
If only it were that easy with the lost Solidworks files.
I had originally asked this question to the AI chatbot and it said that if one uploaded a blank sketch to the board it would let you look at the serial (something) and then it could be copied and pasted.
I certainly don't want to overwrite the code that's currently on the board.
Did you mean "I have no reason not to trust the chatbot"?
Since it is obvious from your answers that you believe him and are going to follow his advice...
Given how much people seem to believe in what is "on the internet" and how much of that is either just plain wrong or actual malicious misinformation, the world may well be doomed.
Yes you can. Though it's not easy or practical unless you really know what you're doing. I've never done it before and looking at the guides on how to is pretty complicated.
Same thing happened to me a few years back... It was at a time when "big" hard drives needed some kind of special driver. That makes the data harder to access... Nothing I tried could recover the files and I didn't want to pay a recovery service. Luckily, there wasn't anything really critical on that drive... The Arduino code was the only thing I hated loosing. I actually had a corruption problem before related to the "big drive" issue but I didn't lose anything important that time.
I re-wrote one of the 3 "important" programs I had and I still have working Arduinos for the other two projects so it's not an emergency. And yeah, I used a fresh Arduino so I didn't have to kill the working project. It's always easier the 2nd time!!!
I have "plans" to re-write the other two but I'm working on some higher-priority things now.
Now I've got everything important backed-up and I have a more modern computers that doesn't need anything special for the hard drive(s).
But not in the way that the OP means, I think. What you get from a reverse assembly, is only a skeleton that has to be fleshed out manually. Sorry for the horror movie imagery.
In most cases, it's likely more difficult than simply writing it again.
Agreed. In this case they mentioned having every pin on a Mega mapped. That's roughly 60 pins if fully used. Unless they're run in an incrementing loop, even at 5 lines of code per pin, that's 3k+ lines of code.
I don't know why quotes aren't embedding in my replies but, yes, it's about 2500 lines of code. I remember how impressed I was with myself when it finally worked.
I'm not a programmer. I'm a tinkerer.
For the last 5 years I've not been able to tinker much and wanted to get back to the Arduino stuff because it went along with another project I am working on. And with advancements in add-on components, the project could come to fruition easier now than 5 years ago.
