Oh, I couldn't believe it. A hinge repair got me a new larger hard drive and a read/write CD drive---which I did not want---and was free! But, ruined all this valuable data which took me years to write, which I had paid a school to read and acknowledge. I still curse myself for not backing it up, but there's no way I would have guessed. Plus, I thought they were just fixing it at my local Best Buy and assumed it would be a simply operation. Anger: I was so angry that I had that feeling like I was going to blast off. If I had been able to get my hands on them I sure I'd be in jail, and I'm not kidding. I'm not religious, but god was helping those people through geography.
Has happened to me... although it was a finished one, and it was only the last half of it or so that was erased, and it was the best written thing i had since it was the most recent (i went back and did the 2nd half a few years after i wrote the 1st). It was my 2nd finished work, and the part i lost was prob about 70-80k words. Was annoying to lose it lol . But i still remember it, and it wasnt exactly going to be published as the 1st half was pretty poor writing, so its not too bad. Just inspired me to start writing a new project.
Yes, I got the MS, which was just the first chapter, I sent them back. They were more then willing to send it to me even commented that they hoped it might help me rewrite it. (I cried when it arrived in the mail) I believe what he said was "Well now that you have written it once the second time should be easier right?" Agents are not bad people, if you find a decent one they are very nice to tell the truth, very civil. They want to work with you and help you as long as you are willing to work with them. Just remember to save your work.
Ouch, now thats a modern day Shakespearean tragedy for you. 1000 pages! Catastrophic dude. Well you know what they say- What doesn't kill you...
Oftentimes, the data is not "gone" from the computer. For a few hundred dollars, a competent computer store can usually extract your files from a defunct hard drive. I mean, unless you ran an industrial magnet over it and chopped it in half with an axe. Not to say that backing up isn't a good idea, but it's actually very, very hard to ever delete anything completely from a computer.
Thanks Scattercat, I am sure everyone who has lost valuable work to Hard Drive crashes will truly enjoy your wisdom of "Just toss money at your problems to make them go away" In truth, those recoveries are not as good as some people like to make them out to be and under no circumstances is the idea that "Oh it can be recovered" a substitute to saving or backing up your work.
Long ago, I lost a full day's work on a major business presentation when a hard drive crashed. Today, I have a Western Digital (2 TB) external hard drive and when I get done with ANY lengthy work on the computer, I save a backup copy on the external drive. It only takes a couple seconds and I can carry that external hard drive to any other computer to recover my work. FYI - I paid around $150 for my most recent external harddrive which has a 2 Terabytes (2,048 gigabytes) capacity . . . that's cheap insurance!!!
80,000 words gone?!!! Oh man, short of dying I can't think of anything much worse than that. I did lose about 5,000 words of something due to a storm and years ago a girlfriend deleted something I'd been writing just because she was pissed at me. But to lose 80,000 words would just be horrible.
HOLY CRAP. Yes. It's happened to me. I had a beautifully written conclusion chapter (epilogue to the sequal) and I was totally screwed! My computer gave me the blue screen (total system failure) and I lost EVERYTHING. I cried, I turned to denial, I laughed, more denial, and I cried. I got over it, though. Unfortunately, my rewrite sucks, and I'm still working on chapter 5 out of 13. Oh man... what a way to break open old wounds xD
YOU HAVE A TWO TERA BYTE SAM DISK Where'd you get it from? BTW, that happened with my first novel. I hand wrote it and in the midst of typing it up, I not only lost the original copy, but the PC decided to be evil and crash, everything but that particular document recovered
My flash drive gave up the ghost a while ago, so I don't think I'd trust those wth my novel. And I certainly don't have the $$$ to buy an expensive external drive. Instead, I just e-mail my novel to myself every 10,000 words or so. If I ever need a backup or just want to look at an older version of my work, I need only open up my e-mail account and download the attached document. EZ peasy and it's free.
not a total computer crash, but i have lost specific mss from time to time... plus my entire body of 'old life's work was lost after having left it with my daughter for 'safekeeping,' when her venal roommate tossed out all of her belongings... and no, i didn't cry any of those times... i only cry when serious scheiss happens to others...
Bought mine from Good Guys electronics store. They have lots of USB based hard drives in the 500 gig for under $100 and 1 terabyte storage for around $100. This is the best and cheapest insurance I've ever found. Anonymous - "My flash drive gave up the ghost a while ago, so I don't think I'd trust those with my novel. And I certainly don't have the $$$ to buy an expensive external drive." I agree about the problem of using flash drives for long term storage. They are not intended for that application. The cost of a 1 gig flash drive is slightly less than a good quality external hard drive. Skip a few fast food trips and you've paid for that external drive.
I had mine get ruined like taht for different reasons, but i gt lucky and had senta bout 75% of it to otherpeople in emails so I could find it again However, the way to solve taht is to buy a jumpdrive or pendrive and save it to your ahrd drive and to your usb jumpdrive like i do now...thus I have a copy at all times.
Lucy E. I often read the last sentence I typed, or paragraph I typed over and over. Sometimes 10 times in a row. That is the only compulsive habbit I have. But it helps me catch errors. I never store my work on an external device. I should, I should. I should at least upload it to my ftp. I think I shall do that right after I type this. I always buy Western Digital HDs, and I have never had one go bad on me or crash, crosses fingers.
Never had it happen to me, but was scared good and proper when the monitor died. I back up to CD, and a memory stick and in an email to my gmail account daily. I also have the handwritten draft I typed from. So, even if all my back-ups fail, I may have to retype, but I won't lose anything completely
If we're talking about backing up word documents here. Don't you think it would be wiser to invest your cash in portability rather that capacity. I mean a 4 gig flash would seem far more useful- allowing you to take your work everywhere you go and to any pc you can get your hands on.
After losing some of my other stuff (Never anything that was finished. The moon might collide with the Earth if I dare finish anything.) I've been saving backups of what I do on a rewritable disc.
Well, the computer I write on is old and unreliable, but it's not connected to the Internet, so no viruses. Which means nothing too bad has ever happened to my writing.