Wednesday 12 August 2015

I ignored my own cardinal rule

Ever since I bought this, my first word processor about 25 million years ago, I've always backed-up my work.


   It was a cool little machine which I still have somewhere. Unfortunately the RAM is of the volatile kind, which is to say that if the batteries run out or you're not fast enough with the mains plug, it's all gone - forever. A real problem if you forget that the mains plug works on UK 240 volts while the French chalet in which you're working has 120 volt power supply.

    After losing an entire novel in this fashion I've always backed up everything, to the point that whenever I open the door of my writing room an avalanche of flash drives,  3½  &  5¼-inch floppies and old cassette tapes cascade about my head.

    I was recently invited to write a story for a new anthology and for some unknown reason I didn't back it up, so obviously I lost it.

     After many hours I finally discovered some allegedly free recovery software that discovered the missing file but then informed that me that if I wanted it back I'd have to pay. Ten downloads later I found another program which allowed me to locate it but only after scanning (manually) 150,000 gibberish RTF files which then turned into a page of Klingon when I finally got it on the screen.

    Much, much later it was back, and now I've decided that I'm not even going to use it.

    Conclusion - I'm a complete plonker.

  

8 comments:

  1. LOL! sounds like something I'd do ;)

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  2. It was my offering for the new collection. It's done now; just making it readable - and not too disjointed.

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  3. I've nominated you for the Blogger's Recognition Award. I hope you look at it as the compliment I mean it as and please don't feel obligated to participate if you don't want to.

    https://ramblingsfromthedarkness.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/blogger-recognition-award/

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    1. That's very kind of you. I would be delighted.
      My story(ies) for the new collection will be with you in a couple of days.

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  4. Years ago I found a program that could resurrect trashed files even after the trash had been emptied (on a Mac). I was amazed; it could find stuff that had been trashed months ago. I have a feeling it wouldn't work as easily these days, though.

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  5. I've learnt my lesson: no more lost stuff. I've just bought an armful of flash drives.

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  6. Ok, this is too funny. lol I love those 'free downloads'. I so often think I'm too busy to back up, and then I pay the price. Ouch.

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  7. I did once - never again.
    We don't even really need it because unless we buy the very expensive Government Wipe program, all the software we ever load onto a hard drive is there forever or until we write something over the top. It just takes something I don't have in abundance - patience.

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