Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

The Cruellest Blow!

help

 

Yesterday, fate dealt me a nasty blow, literally knocking me for six. My stomach hit the floor with such a thump, I swear they heard it miles away.

I had finished some routine paperwork and wanted to work on my WIP, Lazy Days, so I slid the relevant USB (I call them sticks) into the port and tried to open the file. The message was chillingly clear. “Unable to open File”.

Undeterred, I tried again, knowing these things can happen and it would be fine this time.

Only it wasn’t.

I investigated further, unable to believe what I was seeing. Of all the 30 files on this USB, the one I wanted was apparently corrupt and gone forever. Weeks of work on Lazy Days had just gone up in a virtual puff of smoke.

I didn’t know what to do, or if there was anything I could do. I checked everywhere I could think of, but I had no other copy. I don’t usually back up a WIP, which I had just discovered was a grave mistake. There is usually a copy saved by Word, but this turned out to be corrupt too.

I was torn between wanting to howl like a dog, losing my considerable temper or just sobbing my heart out. It was only the stubborn thought that there just had to be a copy somewhere, that kept me from losing it, big time.

Then I remembered something. I had sent copies to our beta readers.  Would I be able to retrieve a copy from one of their emails? Turns out, I could, but all the work I had done since then would have to be done again. What made it worse, I think, is that I was so close to finishing Lazy Days.

The lesson I learned was an important one.  I think this happened because I was getting a little complacent with my USB’s. I have quite a lot of them, and they are invaluable for backing up everything we do. They are so simple to use and hold a vast amount of data.

I hadn’t been treating them with the respect they deserve. Sometimes I would just remove them without going through the procedure. Nothing bad ever happened when I did, so I assumed (wrongly) that it didn’t matter. But apparently, this is the major cause of USB failure.

I guess I won’t be doing that again!

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Responses

  1. Sarah Brentyn Avatar
    Sarah Brentyn

    I’m sorry. :-( I backup my work but not nearly enough. Also, it’s not foolproof, as many here have said. It gives me a false sense of security. Best of luck getting this taken care of!

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      After I cooled down and the sparks stopped fizzing out of my ears, I realised that all I had to do was write it again…

      Reply
  2. coldhandboyack Avatar
    coldhandboyack

    So sorry to learn this. I have iCloud, but I’m fooling myself to think it’s a reasonable option. I need to use some sticks too, but I never do.

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      Just treat them with respect, not like me!

      Reply
  3. lindahuber Avatar
    lindahuber

    Oh, no – but at least it wasn’t all lost. I use Dropbox as well as sticks. It’s easy and safe – they could restore all my files even after a malware attack a year or two ago. Hope you get back to where you were soon!

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      I shall be using them from now on, just in case it happens again!

      Reply
  4. Widdershins Avatar
    Widdershins

    Ouch! … that’s gotta hurt! … thankfully (and hopefully) this is the one lesson we only have to learn once. I lost a good third of a novel a decade or two ago, and now I back up everything at the end of the day, including a hard copy at the end of each project.

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      Good plan! I shall be doing something similar from now on too!

      Reply
  5. Audrey Driscoll Avatar
    Audrey Driscoll

    Then there’s Dropbox, a free (up to a point) cloud-based storage service. It can be used to share documents too.
    Something like that happened to me with my first novel. I was using floppy disks (in 2001, this was). I had my handwritten ms, but of course I hadn’t just transcribed it, but made changes as I typed it into Word. I reconstructed the lost text from the ms and memory, but for years I felt the lost material just had to be better.

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      Yes, we lost some good stuff on floppy discs too… Can you use Dropbox on an android tablet?

      Reply
      1. Audrey Driscoll Avatar
        Audrey Driscoll

        I would think so; it’s an internet site like WordPress. You go to http://www.dropbox.com and open a free account. They offer paid options too, but the basic free one is enough for saving text.
        From Wikipedia: Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software.

        Reply
        1. jenanita01 Avatar
          jenanita01

          Thank you, Audrey!

          Reply
  6. stevetanham Avatar
    stevetanham

    Whenever I have an important file and edit it, I create two new copies in the format filenameDateAA, and filenameDateBB. I write the date in the form: 02Sept17, for easy memory. So, a complete file name might be – TuesBlog02Sept17AA.

    I then email both files to myself, in separate emails, with the file name in the header so that I can find it with a Google search. I use Gmail, which helps with finding things, when you have thousands of ‘things’!

    USB failure proof, as long as you di it often for vital files!

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      That sounds like a good idea!

      Reply
  7. stevetanham Avatar
    stevetanham

    Whenever I have an important file and edit it, I create two new copies in the format filenameDateAA, and filenameDateBB. I write the date in the form: 02Sept17, for easy memory. So, a complete file name might be – TuesBlog02Sept17AA.

    I then email both files to myself, in separate emails, with the file name in the header so that I can find it with a Google search. I use Gmail, which helps with finding things, when you have thousands of ‘things’!

    USB failure proof, as long as you di it often for vital files!

    I then send r ew

    Reply
  8. Sue Vincent Avatar
    Sue Vincent

    I lost a lot when my PC died… and thank all the gods for the wizard who retrieved most of it. That was in spite of backing everything up…as it died during a full back-up and lost pretty much everything. Back up online and off, just to be sure… and back-up your blog too!

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      I have learned my lesson!

      Reply
  9. The Story Reading Ape Avatar
    The Story Reading Ape

    As well as using USB’s and external Hard Drives, I’d recommend you email your days work to yourself each time, Jaye – the date of the email will tell you which version is latest, at worst, you’ll only lose one day of work… 😎

    Reply
    1. Georgia Rose Avatar
      Georgia Rose

      Now that, is a really good tip :-D

      Reply
      1. The Story Reading Ape Avatar
        The Story Reading Ape

        👍😃

        Reply
    2. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      Steve suggested doing this too, and it is a great idea! Thanks, Chris!

      Reply
  10. Georgia Rose Avatar
    Georgia Rose

    I feel your pain :-( Hope you manage to get back to where you were very soon.

    Reply
    1. jenanita01 Avatar
      jenanita01

      I’m sure I will, it’s just a shame about the wasted time…

      Reply

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