When when we learn?

[erastes]

ETA: Thanks to Chris Smith, I now have all the words back. The last 15 pages need major reconstructive surgery in formatting but the WORDS are there. Thanks Chris and thanks you everyone!

Backups!  I know that i SHOULD back up and I see the horror stories of authors who don’t and then I don’t take any notice. I just tried to open the file of I Knew Him and… nothing. The file has been corrupted. I opened the backup copy and that’s showing as a week old.

ARGH.

Luckily, in Word 2007 there’s a text converter option, and although there’s a fuck load of gobblegook on the screen, most of what I’ve written over the last week is there. HOWEVER – as I haven’t been able to activate my copy of Word 2007, I can’t save it,can’t select the text, copy the text, or anything.  All I can do is hope that I can save to Windows Live whatever that is. But first I’ll re-run the installation of Word 1997 and see if that helps. Fuck fuck fuck. This has never happened to me before, not this bad. And its my stupid fault.

  - - - -

Comments

[beckyblack]

Oh what a nightmare! I hope someone more techy can help you figure out how to recover it.

A tip I picked up a couple of years ago and do religiously now, is at the end of my writing session I take a minute to do a Save As and save a .txt version of the file alongside my .doc or .docx. Then if the fancy document file ever corrupts I'll have the plain text version. Of course all the formatting and stuff is kaput, but the words are there.

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

The thing about saving a .txt file is it doens't retain italics or underlining. I'd use .rtf which keeps those special formatting commands.

[josephine-myles.livejournal.com]

Oh Noes!

I've lost two thirds of a short story before, but I'm still not very good at remembering to back-up... Must work out how to set Open Office to autosave to Dropbox. Or perhaps Scrivener, since I plan on mainly using that in future....

[beckyblack]

I know it's definitely a last ditch, when all else fails I still have my words option.

Icon snap!

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

That's HORRIBLE, honey. It's so easy to forget to backup regularly. :(

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Oh no! That's awful! Can you send me the corrupted file? Andrew says that he will have a look at it and see if there's anything he can do. He writes software for a living, so I tend to feel that if there is anything that can be done, he'll be able to figure it out.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I managed to get it limping over to Chris Smith and she got it into notepad form, it's horribly corrupted over the last week of writing, but it's SALVAGABLE and I haven't lost anything! it will take a couple of days to sort out.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I shall be rabid in future. Also what baffles me is why the bloody thing is in ONE file - I NEVER do that - I generally write each chapter in a separate document and save those, AND add the words to a master draft - this time I haven't done that, which is doubly risky. Managed to get it back though, although it needs work on formatting.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I shall be more regimented in future! Thanks to C Smith I've got the words back, just need to sort out the formatting now. phew.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's ok - Chris managed to get it open in notepad and has sent back - it's corrupted over the last week, but the WORDS are there, thanks the powers that be! Thank you - and Andrew though.

Have finished UTH. *sobs* will send now.

[beckyblack]

Chris snatches victory from the jaws of defeat! Yay! :)

[crawling-angel.livejournal.com]

OMg...I've just read this. Damned Facebook keeping me busy today.

I'm so relieved you got it sorted out.

*hugs gently with bottle of rose in hand*

[tiggothy.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you got it back. You've just made me realise that I don't actually have anything backed up, writing-wise, at the moment. You'd think I'd've learned that one after the whole server-crash incident back in February (after which I had to re-build 2 blogs & 1 webshop from scratch and it took me about 6 months with trying to fit it around everything else)

So, so glad to hear your words are back though. Chris Smith is a genius.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I use google docs a lot. It's nice to have a backup which doesn't depend on my hard drive (which has failed on me multiple times). Also, godocs now (in the latest versions) will autosave every so often even if I don't remember to do so. If you sign up for a gmail account, you have that too.
Only problem with this option is if you don't have your internet connection, for whatever reason.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Thank you!