1. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Losing everything

    Discussion in 'Writing Software and Hardware' started by deadrats, Dec 3, 2016.

    I know it's my own fault for not backing up my work, but I just lost about 50 pages and it sucks. My computer crash and auto-saved everything. Then before I saved anything it crashed again. Now I can't find the work I lost anywhere. Is there any hope? Can I somehow find these lost pages or are they really gone forever? I've tried recent documents and doing searches. I'm so mad at myself. Why don't I save things more often? This isn't the first time I've lost work, but it would appear that I haven't learned my lesson. If anyone knows of any tricks to find lost and unsaved work, please let me know. Thanks.
     
  2. CEMO

    CEMO Member

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    Sorry to hear about that! Unfortunately I don't have any suggestions, but if it's any consolation you generally write a scene better the second time around. Anyway, good luck!
     
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  3. antlad

    antlad Banned

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    Does your computer do auto backup so you can rollback to this morning or something?
     
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  4. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    It auto-saved once and the document reappeared the first time I restarted my computer. The second time I had to restart it was gone. I'm not sure how to do what you're talking about, but I would really appreciate if you can tell me how. I'll try anything. This is so frustrating. I don't know if this makes a difference, but the document was never saved. It was just an open-word doc that I was foolishly leaving open and not saving.
     
  5. antlad

    antlad Banned

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    What operating system do you have?

    If on mac find Time Machine and see if it is making backups.

    If on windows try to find a 'restore' somewhere and see if it has back ups.

    If no backups. Take the time to learn how your system makes auto backups and schedule it.
     
  6. Denegroth

    Denegroth Banned

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    Do a search for: *.docx

    The asterisk (*) is a wildcard. It should call up every file that is a .docx file. If you get a result on this search, right click the result and try to "open containing folder".

    If *docx doesn't provide a result, try a search for *.doc
     
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  7. newjerseyrunner

    newjerseyrunner Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Do you need your specific word processor? I started using Google Docs about a year ago and love it. I can access my documents from anywhere and there is virtually no chance of accidentally losing something because it saves itself every few seconds.
     
  8. Alphonse Capone

    Alphonse Capone Active Member

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    Sorry :( I thought I lost two pages and I know how that felt. Hope you sort it.
     
  9. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Thanks to everyone who tried to help. I was able to recover about half of what I lost by trying a combination of all your suggestions. It turns out it was a .asd file. It was a long crazy number and then .asd, which I'm guessing mean auto-save document. I still lost a lot. It sucks pretty bad. I'm still really mad at myself for being so careless.
     
  10. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Well that is not good. Perhaps a secondary external device may suit you well to avoid such things in the future.
    A flash drive or a CD, though it won't recover what has been lost. It might be salvageable if you can get a specialist
    to look at your computer, as things are never truly deleted.

    Good luck, and all the best. :supersmile:
     
  11. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    This is why I keep my Carbonite cloud backup subscription paid, even when I'm having trouble keeping up with the mortgage. It'd be just my luck, though, to have something happen to my laptop someplace where I have no Internet access.

    Glad you recovered at least part of it. As for the rest, that's a bummer.
     
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  12. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    @Catrin Lewis Carbonite huh? Got a copy of Han Solo on back up? :supergrin:
     
  13. EnginEsq

    EnginEsq Member

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    Scrivener saves your work when ever you are idle for more than two seconds.
    It can also be configures to create a backup of a project whenever you open or close the project.
    And you can snapshot the state of individual files whenever you like (such as before an experimental rewrite).
     
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  14. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    Dropbox is another option. And to a certain size it's free.
     
  15. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    Regarding backups I prefer physical copies on an external drive to something cloud/internet based for exactly the reason @Catrin Lewis suggests: I don't want to be dependent on the internet. Whenever I get a huge chunk done or reworked I get itchy fingers, "What-If" syndrome and I reach for one of my ext drives. Yeah that's right: I usually make two ext copies, in addition to the autosave scriv provides for me.

    I never want to go through something as @deadrats is experiencing right now.
     
  16. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. Losing work is horrible. I hope some of what people have suggested can help. You might also want to take your computer in to a repair place. Sometimes they can do wonders at retrieving lost work. Have you figured out what caused the crash? I hope it's fixable.

    I do what @Lifeline suggests (and more). I have 6 cheap and cheerful flash drives I update after every work session in rotations of three, so I always have an up-to-date copy in my drawer AND one attached to my keyring whenever I go out—and a few older copies in case a file gets corrupted and I don't know about it till it's too late. A corrupted file is the only way I've ever lost work, to date, and it was a bummer. EXCEPT I also had a printed version. I had to retype the whole thing into a new document, but at least it wasn't lost. I ALWAYS print off any changes I make, even now.

    I have an entire system backup on a separate hard drive, which I do once a month, and this keeps previous versions until the drive is full, then discards the oldest, etc. AND just to be on the extra safe side, I also email an attachment of my work to myself (updated every time I make changes.) I have a roving email account, which is accessible from anywhere on any machine, so that's another way to do it—in case the house burns down.

    Paranoid? You bet I am!
     
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  17. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I use Dropbox. In fact, my Scrivener files are saved in my Dropbox folder. This service doesn't only save in the cloud, it keeps local files on your hard drive so you don't need internet access to use the files. Further, I have Dropbox installed on three different computers (a desktop and two laptop), so not only is a copy of my work saved in the cloud, it is automatically saved locally on three different computers. Been doing that for years now and never lost anything. It's worth looking into.
     
  18. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Norton 360, if you have that, can be set to save all your documents somewhere, either in the Norton cloud, or on another computer on your network.



    God challenged Jesus and Satan to a programming contest, giving them an hour to write a program to do a certain task.

    Satan was hot out of the box, typing like crazy and not needing to look at a manual. Jesus was much slower, constantly consulting the programming manual in between a few paltry lines of code. After about 45 minutes, as Satan prepared to say "Ah Hah!," God threw a lightning bolt and both systems crashed due to power loss.

    Satan was furious. "God, that's not fair! You knew I beat your Son fair and square and you just cheated to help him win!"

    God smiled, and said "Jesus saves. You should, too."
     
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