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what to do if your computer eats your manuscript
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Interesting! I already knew how to recover my manuscript though because of I have Microsoft 2010 and I've lost my work a couple of times. It's scary.
Elle wrote: "I know this has happened to a lot of writers out there. It has happened to me, so don't let it happen to you. Here is a step-by-step of what to do if it happens to you. http://ellelapraim.com/rec..."
I usually call my son and he retrieves my work for me, but I also have a back up copy safe in cyberspace in a storage unit called Dropbox, you have a password and its free up to a point and by passing the word around you gain more free space. It gives me proof of ownership before copyright too!
My teachers use Dropbox, so I know what it is. What's Springpad Irene?
Zaira (Allisa) wrote: "My teachers use Dropbox, so I know what it is. What's Springpad Irene?"Springpad has the same features as dropbox plus a few things. You can save virtual post it notes, send post it notes in though email and it automatically files it where you want, and you have a calendar.
cool! I'm guessing it's not free?
More and more I've been thinking about setting up a google docs box so that I can have everything backed up on a weekly basis to there.
You should, it is free and pretty simple to use.
Yeah, I just set up a new Gmail account for myself for a promotional thing I'm trying to do, so I'm probably gonna link one to that.
I'm actually VERY bad at saving things in multiple places. Recently I lost a lot of writing due to my flash drive crashing. Nothing I was working on recent was on it, but it still sucks!
Breanna wrote: "I cry..."Don't cry Breanna depends what caused the loss, here in France we get lots of power surges and bad changeovers which cut the power I have my machine on auto save every 30 seconds and when you switch on the computer gives you the option to recover the most recent file.
Otherwise I telephone my son sometimes he can recover the lost data he's a whizz with computers.
He told me to sign up with Dropbox and set it all up for me now everything I do on my computer is sent automatically to Droppbox. So I am protected on all sides, it's free and by recommending people you can get yourself extra space!
I'm only 12. So usually when I lose my essay which I finnally got to 8000 word. I cry... then I usuallly find it. LOL
Breanna wrote: "I'm only 12. So usually when I lose my essay which I finnally got to 8000 word. I cry... then I usuallly find it. LOL"I totally understand, Lol I still cry when I lose mine and I'm a grown up!
Breanna wrote: "LOL :)"Yep grown ups eh!
Is happened before. 1 tear your hear out.
2 throw a fit.
Backup, backup, backup. I can't reiterate enough. Back up your work. Whether on dropbox or an external hard drive or a usb-stick or whatever. Make sure you always have a backup. I personally use Carbonite. They're cheap and they're good. And any change that I make on my documents is immediately transferred when I click save. It's a life-saver. Oh, and save your documents often. Don't just write and write and write. Save. In Word, it's very easy. Ctrl-S and the document is saved. Make it a habit and what you may lose will be minimal. There's nothing worse than losing hours of work.Just my two cents. :D
Having started my novel in November and continuing it now, i make sure to save my work on a USB (memory stick). My computer is extremely old and we are looking at getting a new one, and so just to be on the safe side i would always save it on the USB.
I am normally pretty good at saving on a USB stick and continually hitting save. However I left the stick to my 60 000 word almost completed novel in my pants and then washed it and dryed it in the machine. when I pulled out the clothes I nearly had a heart attack when the stick fell on the floor. I never prayed so hard that it was fine. Thankfully it was and ever since I made a back up Stick for everything I write. I've never heard of Drop box or anything like it (not that computer literate) but sounds like a great idea.
Cynthia wrote: "I am normally pretty good at saving on a USB stick and continually hitting save. However I left the stick to my 60 000 word almost completed novel in my pants and then washed it and dryed it in th..."Oh no! I am now making a mental note to ALWAYS check in pockets before putting anything in the washing machine :)
I use drop box. Assuming you save it there in the first place it automatically saves it there again. It does save a local copy to your computer but if you can get online you can recover the last saved copy when it was net worked. At worst you lose as far as your last network save. You can share drop box accounts as well (like the shared on Google).It is free (yay) if you want more space you can pay but usually if you invite other people you get 25mb free extra.
I used to use Googledocs but I find it very unstable. I lost most of something as the file had corrupted but fortunately I managed to get it to open long enough to save it and put it elsewhere.
It also does funny things to your formatting if you transfer back into word. I havent use google drive, except anything I still have saved in gdocs has been transfered.
This topic has been moved to the Archives as of 5/4/2013.
http://ellelapraim.com/recover-data-a...