Any guesses on how I've been feeling today?Let me share a cautionary tale.
Since I began writing, people have been telling me to get a flash drive. Once I get a flash drive, all my troubles would be over. Well, with our extra tax refund from the government this year, we decided to do some upgrading to our computers and my husband wanted to install a router and some adapters. I wanted a CD burner and a sound card. So we placed an order, complete with a flash drive. We saved everything off the computer onto the flash drive, and then Hubby began his computer project, which necessitated a reinstall of Windows, which wiped out all the previous memory. And, as I'm sure you've guessed, my flash drive refused to cough up my information.
After spending much time on the phone talking to friends and bending our neighbors' ears, and trying everything under the sun, we found a company that does data recovery with a 90% success rate. We have an e-mail in to them and Hubby will be calling them in the morning. I need all sorts of good vibes sent my way, please -- my books are on that drive.
Now, before you get all smart and want to know why I didn't have another backup, let me explain. #1: We were told that a flash drive was all we needed. #2. You can't save an entire book in Word on a floppy; you have to burn it to a disk, and we didn't have a disk burner until just now. I'm learning all kinds of things about other ways to back up files.
19 comments:
I'm so sorry to hear this. I completely understand.
I hope you can get this mess fixed.
Sending the good vibes! The more advanced the technology gets, the mroe screwed you are. It's one of those laws of the universe type things.
Oh no!!!! Oh your poor thing, what an awful tragedy. I totally feel your pain. =(
However....that was an AWESOME picture to go with your post.
Oh, ouch! Tristi - I feel for you!
Pulling out the Goodvibinator, and cranking it up to eleven!
Oh no. I hope you get your information back. I opened an extra email account that I only use to email myself files I don't want to lose. That along with the extra hard drive we have and my flash drive, I hope I'm covered.
Oh, Tristi! I just stopped by to see how you're doing -- it's been ages since I've commented. I will say a Hail Mary for you that your books can be recovered!
Tristi
Google has this awesome thing called Google Docs. It's an online writing system & it stores all your stuff separately from your hard drive (out there in the mysterious world called cyber-space). I love it cause my co-authors and I can be on the docs at the same time, making edits & we can see what we are each doing. We have backups of everything on our own computers as well as on Google Docs.
I'm so very very sorry. I understand how frustrating it is. Good luck!
When my kids scraped up their knees when they were young I would pat them on the head and say, "There there little bear, it will be alright."
That just doesn't fit here. All I can say is OUCH!! I hope you can get your data back.
Oh I am soooo sorry! Really. Been there, done that. Now I burn, flash, and e-mail myself.
Oh wait. I just realized how that sounded. =)
oooo tristi, my heart aches for you. i so hope you get access to your precious words from your books again, especially the things you have absolutely no other copy of. so sorry, kathleen
I know exactly how you feel, computer problems, ugh! I suggest you get an external hard drive and back up everything from your computer into this hard drive. It's much easier to rebuild the computer if you have this. good luck
I'm so sorry about this, Tristi. Ouch! If it makes you feel better, I sent out Cybeles Gift today priority mail (you should have it by Thurs or Fri) and the last 100 or so pages really are good! :) I'd tell you to go eat chocolate to make it all better, but you don't do that anymore. Well, big hugs headed your way...
Good vibes sent. Loosing books is not fun. Hopefully, all that hard work does not disappear. Good Luck!
ooooooooooooooooh yikes! Sending you all sorts of good vibes!
Holy Crap-a-moley.
I hope that company is able to do the trick for you Tristi. David's been able to recover stuff for me when everything seemed impossible--I hope the same holds true for you!
Good luck! Really, really, good luck!
That is so sad Tristi!! I hope you can recover things. I use a 2GB flash drive (Kingston) and a 160GB portable USB harddrive (FreeAgent Go by Seagate). I back up onto my flash drive every time I make a change in a file. If the file names are too long, sometimes the system will not be able to read them. Sometimes you can change the name of a file - making it shorter, and it will recover. My portable harddrive fits in a shirt pocket and runs off of the USB port - no other power is needed. I definately recommend that model. It is very useful, since I work on my laptop a lot and transfer data back and forth between it and my desktop. I hope my suggestions aren't so much like shutting the barn door after the horses are out. Hang in there and good luck!
So sorry! Hope it all goes well. My computer seems to be on the brink and until we can afford a new one it will have to live, so I am a down loading fool, to my flash card, to CD to the iomega. I have even gone as far as to e-mail the firle I am working on to myself. A little parinoid I know. I wish you all the luck!
I've had the happen to me several times with my flash drive not working. Some people recommend emailing a copy of your document to yourself so you have one more backup. Good luck!
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