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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 28, 2008 10:52:57 GMT
We were talking a bit back about destroying work. I said I had considered it many times. I just did it by accident.
My PC needs to be wiped clean and restarted but most of my work is on the laptop. Because of the pc problems I have been trying lots of things- cleaners, virus scans, Kleenex and Detol.
Naturally I tried them on the laptop in a spate of excess. Well, the result is goodbye two unpublished novels (one finished) and about ten unpublished short stories as well as all my lyrics (about ten folders worth) and - who gives a shit - but the business stuff has gone too.
Conceivably there are a few copies of some old versions sitting on floppy disks and on paper somewhere in this mess of an office.
It feels rather strange, not necessarily unpleasant -almost like remembering old friends long dead - the stories and characters have already idealised in my head so there is a touch of sadness but also an almost unrealistic regard for their worth .
RIP
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Post by dem on Oct 28, 2008 11:15:08 GMT
Oh, that is horrible! I hope you have more of it backed up than you think, Craig. It's all very well being wise after the event, but you really should back up your work before trying to fix anything. Every time. We all know that, but how many of us actually do it? This from the man who wiped out three years worth of emails with his last reinstall ....  I don't know how many of you have USB flash drives, but they're very handy. I tend to back-up to CD about once a fortnight, then take a copy of everything onto the USB as an added precaution. Thing is, they've come way down in price now to the point where the Mirror was giving them away for the price of a padded self-addressed envelope at the weekend. Admittedly, they're pre-loaded with High School Musical propaganda, but you can always wipe that and customise the stick. Unless, of course, you like High School Musical in which case you're made up. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 28, 2008 11:20:48 GMT
Well, there will probably be some stuff somewhere - I sometimes send stuff to yahoo for example, but the versions will be old and not have revisions on them (hours of painstaking work) but I think my lyrics are mostly gone and I was working on a new - non folk - album down in Cologne - The irony is that I had just backed all the stuff on to an i-buddie USB hardrive thing and as far as I could see it had all arrived on the disk. When I check - nothing. Some f**k**g buddie I say....
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Post by dem on Oct 28, 2008 11:36:16 GMT
I know this probably sounds like a stupid question, so I apologise in advance, but have you tried the i-buddie stick again since the clean up? If the work is still on there, I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to transfer it to your PC? Have a look under the bonnet so to speak, and provided your lyrics and stories are backed up on there, try transferring them folder by folder instead of in one hit. If you've done all this, just tell me to shut my stupid face!
Here's another to watch for, and i know this has happened to others as it's been the subject of several irate pms! If you've a lengthy post to make, don't type it direct into the box! Do it in notepad or wordpad and save it just in case! That way, should your computer freeze or pack up or the line go dead, you've not wasted your efforts!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 28, 2008 11:53:08 GMT
No stupid questions, Dem, that could match my stupidity here. I just checked again. 'For some reason i can't explain' (Coldplay) that bastard of a USB stick did not save anything despite every indication that it did. Nothing whatsoever on it.
PC will not open the Local Disk C/: which may or may not have some stuff on it - It takes about three days to open if it does open at all. I have been trying for 6 weeks to sort out the PC and had just resigned my self to a complete wipe and restart.
My stories are non-existent right up to and including my submission for Sean's 'Another House Another Hill', which Sean has. (I hope) One novel might be on a floppy magnetic disk but who knows where and if it will work. There is a five year old copy on paper somewhere but I really, really could never be arsed retyping that thing as its now fourteen years since the f**k*r began (I believe that using Kübler-Ross model of grief I am reaching anger. I think the next stage is bargaining).
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Post by carolinec on Oct 28, 2008 11:57:47 GMT
Oh no, that's terrible Craig (which reminds me, I've been very lax lately - just saving my interviews, articles and even work things to hard drive. I must go and save them to disc straight away now after reading that!)
I'm hopeless with computers, so I'm probably talking rubbish, but if you go to an expert might they be able to retrieve things for you? I know when my last computer died, the friendly man in our village computer shop said he could retrieve things for me, but at that time I had everything I needed on disc anyway so there was no need.
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 28, 2008 12:00:13 GMT
You have my sympathy, Craig. That's just too horrendous for words. I would be devastated. (Which prompts me to make sure I do another backup tonight of all my stuff, since it's over a month since I last did it)
Have you not tried taking your PC to a computer shop? I know a lot of these places are useless, but I believe there is software you can use to retrieve stuff you think is lost. I believe it's a lot harder to lose stuff than most of us think - which has cost some people who have had criminal stuff on their computers which they thought they'd got rid of quite some time inside.
Fingers crossed for you, Craig, that you do somehow manage to retrieve your stuff.
David
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Post by benedictjjones on Oct 28, 2008 12:00:55 GMT
^SURELY IF YOU TAKE A HARD DRIVE TO A DECENT IT blokey he can pull them all back off for you... nothing is ever truelly wiped (most of the time) it's just a case of finding it.
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Post by mattofthespurs on Oct 28, 2008 13:07:47 GMT
Sucks man, I feel for you.
I really do.
(scurries off to back everything up sharpish).
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 28, 2008 14:17:57 GMT
Oh dearie dearie. It's starting to kick in. I have the novels at yahoo- only about two years old each - so I have lost two years of revisions. Letters all gone, short stories, lyrics....
More checks remind me i often wipe my temp files so restore points and so are only three days old. No possibility of recovering this. Disk analysis shows that the files on the laptop are in fact empty. Some but not all, are on the C Drive of my computer which will not open and is on the point of utter collapse. That bastard of f**k**g fuckwit USB stick is empty and is shortly going to be burned at the stake. Its gone gone gone.
I won't bore you with the rest of the details. I'm saying nothing new here or anything worth hearing except. I AM VERY VERY PISSED OFF and may not make any rational statements for a long time.
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