I would still recommend finding a computer technician to help you out. Check the classifieds/yellow pages.
We tried that hookup once, but my computer has no ethernet card, just a really old modem. I’m not sure if we have cords long enough, either.
Under normal circumstances I could probably hook up to the net using a friend’s connection. It might still work, but I’m still amazed my computer accepted the printer drivers.
I haven’t yet, but most technological solutions will have to wait until tomorrow. I have a couple of close friends who work with computers, but one’s out of town right now, and the other is at work.
I personally use a USB flash drive. I believe it is the best back-up solution. CDs take quite a lot of time to burn and 3.5 disks are unreliable and very slow (and you will probably need more than one for a big Word document).
USB flash drives are very fast, reliable, and they can hold a lot of data. Also, you can disconnect them from your computer when you’re finished copying the files. This minimizes the probability of virus infections or accidental deletion of the files.
Is it just the software that’s bugging out or the entire computer? Can you highlight the text, cut it and paste it? If it won’t even let you do that, you might want to invest in a screen capture program such as SnagIt. You can capture a whole page of text and then xfer that image (it’s not editable text, but an image of the text) to another program where it can be printed or perhaps scanned into another program where it can be converted into editable text.
Not a great way to do it but it may save you having to type everything out again.
Also, in the future I would highly recommed getting a subscription for virus protection and a firewall on whatever computer you replace this with. I’ve never had a problem with viruses (knock on wood) but I’ve always had top notch virus protection, too.
Good luck to you! Hope your great American novel does well.
While that would keep him safer from viruses (if, in fact, that’s the problem to begin with), it won’t protect him from losing data to a hardware malfunction.
Get thee to a computer shop, pronto! They’ll get your data back, or tell you who can (probably, that is… there is always a chance that you’re 100 % screwed; but in that case when you re-write the lost chapters, they’ll be all the better for having stewed in your head a while longer).
Start backing up your important data, people!
Cutting and pasting is one of the few things I have left. It’s also now letting me save, but everything I save is corrupted and un-openable.
I tried cutting and pasting into wordpad and notepad, but that didn’t help much. Wordpad will “save as” (unlike Word) but I still just get corrupted files.
Thanks you, but I should warn you it’s not an American novel. 
My advice, if you really care about this work (and it sounds like you do) is to STOP USING THE COMPUTER RIGHT AWAY. Take it to a data recovery expert and get the data you need off it. It’ll probably cost you a couple of hundred dollars, but this is four years’ work; think of it in a per hour cost and it’s nothing. By the sounds of things your computer isn’t in an irrecoverable state (or anything like it), but every time you use it makes it more likely for something to go catastrophically wrong. Each time you save something that’s corrupted, it writes over more of the disk, potentially zapping things you really want. Each time you boot it up you give the viruses another chance to delete stuff and screw up your work. Stop, now. Get the professionals to extract your precious data, and then worry about whether your computer works.
Actually, I see Astroboy14 has pretty much beaten me to it. The only thing I’d emphasise is that you want a data recovery expert, and not the local beige-box-sellers. Please don’t try and fix this yourself.
Maybe you can try downloading a trial version of another Word Processing program, and doing a “Paste, Special, Unedited Text.” Seems like the virus is embedded in the text somehow.
Hamish,
If you’re serious about fixing this problem, swallow your pride, open your wallet, and call a computer tech or data recovery expert like several other posters have already advised. And stop using the computer. Now.
Good luck.
To elaborate further:
You could easily be making things worse right now. If you get a data recovery expert involved, the first thing he or she is going to do is make a mirror copy of the hard drive, which will guarantee that things do not get any worse than they already are.
Ham, if you can display the files, you can get them off the computer. It may take a little coaxing, but if you can SEE them, they’re there. If I were sitting next to you, I’d be willing to bet I could get them.
Call a computer person, have 'em help you. Your problem is not going to be difficult for someone who knows computers to fix.
Seriously, buy a flash drive. I can fit my whole novel and a dozen short stories on mine, and they’re relatively cheap for the peace of mind they give you.
And back up your stuff on email. Get a gmail account (they give you 1GB of space) and send yourself the whole novel on that. Conversely, you can register a Geocities site and paste the novel there, making sure you don’t give anyone the link (first publication rights and all that). You’ll never have to worry about losing it, and you can just cut and paste it from the site or email onto a word processor. If you can still cut and paste, this is the easiest solution.
I’ve been to the land of shitville, too Hamish. A separate HDD with USB connection gets a monthly backup image after Spybot, Adaware, and antivirus have run. It lives in a small fireproof safe, along with originals of all software I’d need for a full system setup. Mebbe I’ve overdone it, but rebuilding bites, bigtime.
Yeah - put me down in the ‘WTF were you thinking?’ column. I pretend to be a writer and my work is on home laptop, backed up to a thumb drive and my work machine (at a different location). Periodically everything gets transferred to a second thumb-drive and recently to a portable USB hard-drive.
It’s totally wacko to have anything important only on one machine. You have to not only have backups you have to have them in different locations in case of fire and theft.
With thumb drives as cheap as they are there’s no excuse not to back-up. I always have a thumbdrive with the latest backup either on my person or in my briefcase.
Man - you put in all that effort writing and you trust to god and luck to keep the single copy safe? 
I highly recommend the investment of a computer technician. For about $50 and a few minutes, I bet it could be recovered. It is worth a shot, because as of right now, you have nothing.And as a writer, my heart bleeds for you.
We.are.very.lucky that Mr. Ujest’s computer-geek-boy-coworker works on our computers in exchange for tool or trailer usage. (YAY for us and having more stuff than the local Rent-All place!) The guy has kept my laptop in tip top virus free shape since day one. And he isn’t that dorky. 
so he has that going for him.
Just to clarify for others, any fireproof safe for magnetic media needs to have a UL Class 125 1-hour rating. This rating means that it can withstand temperatures of 1550°F for one hour before the internal temperature of the vault goes over 125°F (the failure point of magnetic media).
Your standard fireproof safe is UL Class 350 (protects to 350°F) and is meant to protect paper only, which starts to char at roughly 400°F. However, your media will be puddles of goo by that point.
I just wanted to thank everybody. I have an offer to help from a friend of a friend, and I’m still trying to contact a friend of mine who’s an expert at this. kung fu lola had a great suggestion which is the only thing that worked so far – commiting it to a voice recording.
It’s much faster than doing it by hand, and if I don’t lose my data, this disaster will be a blessing in disguise. Hearing it being read out is helping me with some problem areas in my writing.
(while I have a lot of tech-knowledgeable in this thread, is it possible to transfer audio from a tiny Sony digital recorder to a computer – say, from a digital recording disk to a WAV file? I think I’d like to store my audio chapters on a less volatile medium, and my roommate’s computer can burn CDs)
Not if it’s a Sony NetMD, probably. Search if you want details, but generally the NetMD protocol is one-way, from computer to player. I can’t speak for other devices.
It says “Sony Portable Minidisc Recorder MZ-B100”
That’s all Greek to me.
If this is one of those devices that uses one of those little minidisks that comes in a cartridge, I’m afraid not. For some reason Sony just doesn’t want people to upload stuff they’ve recorded on those to a computer. iPods and their ilk are much more versatile in that department.
However, all is not lost. It is possible to buy reasonably-priced audio creation and editing software for your computer and an inexpensive microphone and simply let the player play into that, thus transferring the file into the computer. It’s not elegant, but it works, and as you aren’t looking for sterling sound quality it’s an option. I’d mention the sound editing software I use here, but it is made by Sony as well and since they’re making things hard to being with, maybe they don’t deserve any more money being spent on their products.
Sorry about all your trouble, Hamish. It sucks.