what to do if your computer eats your manuscript

[Everly]

This is everyone's worst nightmare. You're halfway through your 100,000 word novel, and your computer crashes and takes your book with it. Here is a step-by-step plan for getting it back.
http://ellelapraim.com/recover-data-a...

[Susanna]

Hi, this blog is very informative, thank you for sharing. I post it to message to my children 2 fantasy escapism shared author page on Facebook if that's is okay. All tips and techniques help everyone to achieve their goals; working together as a team.

[Jim]

Advice I give every author/artist/etc...

1) Install DropBox
2) Save your manuscript only to the DropBox folder

If your PC dies, you just log into DropBox from a new machine and the file syncs right up. You lose nothing.

Jim

[Jeffrey, Lentarian Fire Thrower]

As a Microsoft certified tech w/ 17+ years experience, I tell my clients to backup their important data to offsite media. Flash drives, burned to disc, external HD, etc.

If you're comfortable trusting your data with someone online, then more power to you. I've had some nasty experiences with online data backups, so I generally steer everyone I know away from them. Just my own experience and opinion.

But definitely backup your data. In this case, redundancy is your friend. My books are saved on my laptop, iPad, backup laptop, wife's laptop, and the micro SD card in my phone. :)

Big J

[Jim]

Ditto on the phone, etc. I currently dump encrypted copies to DropBox, my phone, my flash drive (including the one I keep hidden in my car in case my house burns down), and a copy on my webhost's server.

I figure they can't all blow up on the same day...right?

It's overkill, but better than the alternatives.
:)

[Jeffrey, Lentarian Fire Thrower]

I hear that. The more copies I have floating around, the better. I put a lot of work into those books and I'll be damned if I let an irritable computer kill it in one fell swoop. :)