# How Can a File Go Missing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 5, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901 "2008-06-05T16:20:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/1 "2008-06-05T16:20:17Z")
OK, so let be obscure some of the juicer details. I belong to a certain web site that posts acres and acres of stories of s certain type. This site dominates the sector. (No guessing, darn it.) Someone recently posted an old story, part one of a tale many of us remember from the old BBS days. The file is perhaps 20 ears old. We have all looked for Part Two. We have online and n our own collections. Nada. Nothing. Bupkiss. How can a file disappear? You would think I never purposely deleted part of my embarrassing large collection. Even if I did, you got to figure one of the dozen or so other old-timers would have it. If if we all lost it, you would think Google could find it. I thought the internet was supposed to act as a perfect filing cabinet for information. I was wrong. I suppose I will write to the NSA to see if they have it in my file. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/2 "2008-06-05T16:46:36Z")
Are you sure that part 2 was ever posted? It’s not uncommon for online serials to go unfinished. Its possible for a failing hard drive to lose files(and find them again – I’ve had this happen to me). However, it’s basically impossible for this to happen on a lot of different computers around the world. The most likely explanation to me is that the file never existed, or it has a different name from the one you’d expect. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/3 "2008-06-05T17:03:31Z")
I would agree with you, but darn it we all remember it. Also, I might add, the Spotlight search feature on my Mac is not as all-knowing as I would like. Even using quotes, “by Mr. XYZ” does not find the second file. This is a trivial matter of course. But can a file as distributed as widely as this one was just disappear? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/4 "2008-06-05T17:06:11Z")
The Wayback Machine is not of assistance? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/5 "2008-06-05T17:33:06Z")
I have not tried it. Saudi firewall and all. But this file would have been from 1985 (or so). It may have never even been on the internet. Still that leaves the question of how several fairly obsessive types could have lost it over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/6 "2008-06-05T17:39:11Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] Still that leaves the question of how several fairly obsessive types could have lost it over the years. [/QUOTE] Perhaps this is your answer. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/7 "2008-06-06T01:40:41Z")
Yep, but still an rather _unsatisfying_ answer. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/8 "2008-06-06T01:43:32Z")
Maybe El Nino? Either that or the Trilateral Commission. Those guys are _very_ tricksy. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/9 "2008-06-06T01:44:46Z")
You have a Mac, and you’re searching plain text files, I assume. Do you have grep installed? grep is a very flexible command-line tool for searching through text files. It might be able to find the file. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/10 "2008-06-06T02:12:37Z")
“grep?” From version tracker I presume? ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/11 "2008-06-06T02:32:17Z")
You should tell us more. Maybe I have it. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/12 "2008-06-06T03:00:21Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] “grep?” From version tracker I presume? [/QUOTE] I do see a version of grep available there. grep is a standard Unix command, though, so it’s possible that OS X has it installed already. I really don’t know whether the standard Unix tools get installed with OS X or not. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-a-file-go-missing/451901/13 "2008-06-06T03:57:29Z")
Likely reasons you can’t find it: 1. It never existed. 2. The author/title was mispelled in the original text or entirely absent and started directly in on the story. 3. No one saved it just by happenstance 4. It existed but wasn’t very good or was just a stub of a story that never really got finished and was ultimately ignored until it got flushed away during some spring cleaning. 5. Part 2 was released as a rewrite + expansion of Part 1. So everyone deleted their personal version of Part 1 and overwrote it with the new, longer story, and then promptly forgot that they had done so. In case it is item #2, I’d recommend foregoing author, title, and date and just searching by keywords based on what can be recalled of the “content”. Either that or searching down the author himself.