Well, it took four years to get my novel to the point where it was almost worth publishing. Four years of hard work and struggle. Four years, 8 versions, and 40 chapters. And as I did the final edit on each chapters, I began transferring them to my roommate’s hard drive to burn.
Four years. It probably would’ve taken three, but about a couple of years ago my hard drive was eaten by a virus and I lost everything. I was very upset by that. No matter. I had hard copies. I rebuilt from those.
But now my computer’s gone viral again. First I lost the ability to “save as,” then the ability to print, then the ability to copy files, and now my computer won’t do anything but display the files. There’s no way to get them on or off my computer, except to copy them off by hand. And that’s exactly what I plan to do, shirking off the time needed for my grad studies – copy it out by hand before it gets worse. I only managed to save 8 chapters before I lost the ability to copy.
This is my life’s work – this is what gives it meaning. Why kind of sick fuck writes viruses, anyway?
It’ll probably be what I do next. When my printer conked out, I started transferring files between my computer and my roommate’s to print – he had the only working printer, and the internet connection. I’d been doing that more often lately, because I wanted to set up webpages, and I was designing them on my computer.
Then less than a week ago, it just stopped “saving as.” Today it lost every other function in a matter of hours.
My next computer will have to be a complete internet virgin.
Before you make it any worse, find yourself a computer tech pronto. At the very least, it would be trivial to remove the hard drive and put it in another computer to transfer the files. I also highly recommend you ask him/her about potential backup solutions.
I just can’t even begin to understand all these people who keep their life’s work on a single computer, and don’t even consider backing up the files. Then they blame technology when they don’t recognize warning signs and lose all their files.
The other day there were signs posted around my campus from some graduate student who had had his laptop stolen. The laptop had 3 years worth of work towards his thesis, and he had no backups. He was offering an $800 reward for an anonymously sent cd with the files.
Don’t mean to be a dick, but don’t you back up your work? It’s happened to us all…but a good back-up system WILL save your bacon…or switch to Linux or a Mac.
Can’t you just save backups on disks or CD’s? Sorry if this is ‘too late so shut up’ advice. I lost a semester’s worth of writing for a class once because I didn’t back up and had to do it all again with only a few handwritten notes. Now I back up everything, multiple copies on different CD’s if it’s really important. I’ve had disks go wonky on me too so can’t rely just on those either.
Is your home computer still connected to the internet? Can you copy and paste? Open the file, copy it into an email, and send it to me (RolandOrzabal “at” gmail.com). I’ll put it on a CD and mail it to you. If you can’t copy and paste for some reason, send it as an attachment.
Most of it was very recently written – I went on a writing binge and wrote with every spare second. Plus, my 3.5 disk drive wasn’t working until very recently, and my printer had died, so I haven’t been able to back up anything.
When it was obvious that I couldn’t copy files off my computer, I copied drivers on to my computer and hooked up a different printer. No luck.
I had begun to transfer the book – I saved the first 8 chapters. I was giving each chapter a look over, then saving it, and bringing it to my roommate’s computer.
I have older versions backed up, but this version was, by far, the heaviest revision so far.
Damn. That sucks BIG time. I remember when I thought I’d lost all my work, but then it turned out my brother had put it all onto a disc for me. For a few hours I was freaking out. have my sympathy.
How about attaching the file to an e-mail then accessing the e-mail from another computer. Or is your computer too far gone to be able to do that?
Don’t worry, it’s something that had to be said, apparently more than once because he didn’t learn after the first crash. But what happened to Hamish, though sad, is a lesson we all have to learn and few people learn from the nagging of others. It’s just that SOME of us learned it after losing only a day’s work. Perhaps he’s just been spoiled by reliable modern equipment. Old farts usually spend a fair amount of time keeping track of which one is the latest backup. Or backups. Something creative like a novel needs more than one.
I hear ya, that’s always the way, it goes. One thing, STOP backing up to floppies. It’s the most unreliable media. Your best bet would be CD and multiple ones at that.
Send me the file, (attachment) I’ll see if my old trusty mac will open and resave it. This way if there’s any virii, they may get shaken out. You MAY lose some formatting, but I think that’s the lessor of two evils.
I’m not a writer, but I hate losing just a long post. I can scarcely imagine your anguish, nor anything that might assuage it. All I can offer is a heaping helping of respect for your perseverance. Maybe a data recovery service could get to it for you.
Okay, now I’ve gotten it to save, but can’t open the new files – it recognizes the file types and names, but can’t read the data. Is that a separate problem, or a continuation of the first?
And thanks everyone, who’s expressed sympathy. But all’s not lost – if I can’t find any way to get it off my computer, I still have the chance to copy it out by hand. The remaining chapters still needed a heavy edit, so it’ll just take a little longer to type them up again. I might even do the editing while I write.
It’s more frustrating than anything else. It’s not like the files have been erased yet.
Can you connect to the internet or is just that you never have? There are a few down and dirty solutions that may work…depending on what’s going on with your machine.
The first solution that comes to mind is connecting to your roommates machine via ethernet or usb and coping (if you can) your files to his machine. Then emailing to one of us to open and resave it. Make sure your roommate has current virus protection before you do this.
The second solution would be to download one of the free linux distros, create a dual-boot system and open the file using one of the linux wordprocessing programs. This will bypass any virii.
