Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Gone Gone Gone

This is topic Gone Gone Gone in forum Grist for the Mill at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

For the past, oh, ten years, I've been using a diskette for miscellaneous storing of data. As of a couple days ago, it quit on me...when I try to access it, the computer tells me it's "not formatted."

Now there's this-and-that can be duplicated. Somewhere I've got a copy of the disk, but it'll lack some years of data. A couple of story files...but the ones I finished I printed out and the ones I didn't didn't amount to much...later stuff were on other disks. Some prompt lists of "things to do" and "things to buy"...I can dig up an old printout and duplicate them. A little of this, a little of that...

Probably the thing that bites me the most is the loss of my submissions file. I used to do it on index cards, but shortly after I switched I moved the later entries to pages in a word processing file, processed to be the exact same size as the cars. I think I've got a printout of it somewhere...which wouldn't include the last, oh, five years. Duplicating that, well, may be impossible.

Losing data bites.

Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :

Have you tried contacting one of those data-retrieval people? Unless you've demagnitized the disk, I think there's usually something they can do to retrieve stuff.

Posted by WBSchmidt (Member # 8533) on :

quote:
Have you tried contacting one of those data-retrieval people?

This is an option but you will need to balance the price for the work with the value of the data. Depending where you go I have heard that these places can get expensive. Someone at my workplace had something like this happen and the place he spoke with wanted A LOT of money. It wasn't worth it to him to recover his years of work.

I feel for you, having been there myself.

--William

Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :

Robert, here are a couple of suggestions:

1 - If there are any icons available on the disk, try saving them to a file on your hard drive by dragging them to the file. Then try opening it. You may have luck left-clicking and using the "open" option.

2 - If you are using MS Windows and Word, go into the search option of your start menu and try find Word (or whichever WP software you're using) files. Check on your disk and your hard drive both (especially if you use an autosave function).

Good luck

Posted by Patrick James (Member # 7847) on :

Good luck, I hope it works out for you. We have all been there, I think.

Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :

If it's an old floppy disk you're having a problem with and you have access to a gung-ho computer nerd, see if they can have a look at it in a sector editor. They may be able to see content on the disk that the operating system cannot and recover a few files for you.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Nah, no icons pop up...and the stuff on it really doesn't make it worthwhile to consult anyone. What I know about computers would fit in a thimble and there would be room left for a computers-for-dummies book...but I'm still the closest thing to a computer geek in my social circles, far as I know...despite the fact that my relatives got a computer about six months before I did, it was me who showed them how to use Google...

Should'a taken, as a warning sign, when a single file on the disk failed last year. The others were all right...but I should'a tried to make a copy disk then and there. (Spent a lot of time duplicating that file on a new disk, plus duplicate disks, plus printouts.)

I think the disk may have gone when I pulled that spaghetti-and-meatballs recipe off it and posted it here on another thread. (That one I've got a printout, for sure...I keep it in a recipe notebook in my kitchen and consult it nearly every time I make spaghetti.)

I've had an odd glitch with my computer the last couple of weeks, like once a week, where the power blinks and the computer shuts down and restarts. The power elsewhere isn't blinking---the lights never even dim---but the effect has been disconcerting. And the disk might've been in the drive when it happened, though it probably wasn't spinning around and being read. My backup battery surge protector thing must have failed in some way...I think I'll pick up another one sometime today.

Posted by Devnal (Member # 6724) on :

Just on the same subject matter- and a caution to back up;

I have been traveling a lot recently and I keep all my stories on my ipod so I can work on them as I go around. Got home yesterday, put in a load of laundery, and sure did find my ipod as I went to switch my threads from washer to dryer.

Argh.

actually im not too upset. Some of my stuff I liked and i did make copies of. The rest were more just idea's that got long winded. I think they ended up wasting my time more than anything

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

I did get a new battery backup...but left it in the trunk of my car and forgot about it till now. Ah, well...something to do this morning, if I have the time...

Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :

I bought a cheap USB drive. It was a huge 8 GB. I used it to download my wife's files when her computer died.

A few weeks later, the stupid thing croaked, the info was on the USB drive alone. My wife didn't know how to load the contents on her new computer.

Nothing beats multiple backups.

Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :

I email all my important stuff to myself as an attachment. Gmail gives you gigs of space and if their servers ever wipe I'm pretty sure the world will end O.o

Nate