Stop what you are doing and back up!

~ Melissa Morris Inoa

Please, if you are currently writing anything on a computer (or have in the last few days or weeks or months) and haven’t backed it up yet, do so now!

I recently lost (and I truly hope with all of my heart this loss is only temporary because of the many brilliant technology minds out there who can perform miracles) everything (and I pretty much do mean everything) I have written in the last four months.  The drafts of my thesis are safe because I actually saved those at school.  But, everything else disappeared when my hard drive crashed on Monday and all of my hard work for the last four months is now trapped in a tiny 4″ box.  

I will explain more about what I lost and why I didn’t back anything up for four months in a later post.

But, in the mean time, please take my advice and go back up your work!

And, cross your fingers for me that my documents can be retrieved…

~Melissa

3 thoughts on “Stop what you are doing and back up!”

  1. Disaster! I’m so sorry to hear about this! After college I lost my old computer, along with every paper I wrote in school. But now I backup everything to a USB stick, so I’m good to go. I also email my files to myself from time to time, just to be safe. Good luck!

    Like

    Reply

  2. Hey Melissa, sorry for your tech-loss…Data Loss can be such a huge thing, because many people store important files there (that’s why Data Recovery is such a huge business).

    Yeah Joe, I had the same thing happen to me years ago…that’s what I do as well, after backups I occasionally email extremely important files to myself to be sure that I will always have an extra copy somewhere.

    The 1st you’d want to do Melissa is take out the HD (or bring the whole PC if you can’t) to a REPUTABLE tech company or guy…this is VERY important. I’ve worked in the Tech Industry in the past, and I can’t stress enough how many times company workers compounded the problem by trying to “fix” the problem…every time Data is attempted to be written to the HD it will risk further corrupting the existing File System further.

    Most reputable data recovery people/places have HD Recovery Tools that are used to recover as much Data as they can….

    I have no doubt in my mind that most important parts of your Data will be safe (providing you didn’t try to repeatedly access it)…don’t worry, you’ll be okay, and you’re Data will be recovered.

    Like

    Reply

  3. When it comes to trusting computers to be reliable, there’s no such thing as being too careful. I’m one of the sad group that learned this the hard way.

    I’ll second the already-suggested idea of a USB stick. At the end of each and every writing session, I plug that rascal into the computer and drag-and-drop my writing folder to it. It’s become a sort of reflex; just like stepping on my car’s clutch pedal, I don’t even think about it anymore.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment