What's the most you've lost?

[Nateskate]

If you write, chances are you've lost pages or even books through computer crashes and other such things. I've lost entire books in the past.

Now I have so many redundant copies it's sick. I have a home computer I call my vault. I don't go online, so there are no threats of viruses or other nasty things. It was less than two years old, and it just began to blink, and then it just went black. It went so black that we couldn't access the bios, meaning the motherboard crashed and not the hard drive. I had most of the info on other external drives, but still lost some data.

All in all, I had a deadline to send out book two, and I had all but forty pages printed.

It took a month, because instead of buying a new computer, I built one, well- I ordered the parts and looked on as others built. I finally have a computer and my files were all saved except perhaps a few pages.

Just wondering who else has lost parts of their WIP? How did you deal with it?

[ishtar'sgate]

Fortunately, I haven't lost any. My son drove me crazy about making backups while I wrote my first novel. I always have a current hard copy of everything as well as a jump drive copy. Well, my jump drive isn't up to date but then my son's at university and not nagging me. Guess I'd better smarten up!:D
Linnea

[IdiotsRUs]

*sob*

please, I don't want to talk about the times my hard drive has died.

*sob*

[dempsey]

In 2005, when I was 21 years old, my hard drive crashed, taking with it everything I had ever written since I was 8 years old.

When people ask "If you've been writing so long, why don't you have more to show for it?" that is why.

It still hurts to think about.

[triceretops]

Nine novels in a house fire--three that were repped by Richard Curtis in 1988. I don't even like to think about it. I had no hardcopy extras, and Curits disposed of my books once they failed to sell.

Tri

[Gary Clarke]

NINE NOVELS?
Nine?

Jeez, Tri. I'm flippin stunned. I was gonna say I'd lost an entire scifi novel to a stack of dishes my young-wan dropped on the laptop, but it sounds pitiful next to that.

Nine. NINE?

Sheesh.

[Tachyon]

I've lost a couple of pages here and there. One time I wrote three great pages, then I closed OpenOffice--closed, it didn't crash on me--and I told it not to save! -_-

Several years ago, I had an ancient version of my first novel in WordPerfect 7 format on an equally-ancient computer. The file was also password protected--and I forgot the password. Luckily I remembered it after a while and was able to get into the file--then I remembered why I hadn't copied it off the ancient computer on to the new one. :P

[VoltShadow]

Yeah in retrospect I don't feel as bad either. I lost one novel and the 2nd and third chapters of a W.O.P. before due to a computer worm, but luckly I had discovered my archival hardcopies in some trippy little ziplock bag crammed in a pile of my old Transformers comic books. (Don't ask, to this day I don't even know how or why). It took me forever to scan the thing back in and then get it reformatted but it was there. Ever since I have things double backed all the time on Jumpdrives and on CD/DVDs.

[shebitme]

i back my stuff up on a flash drive regularly, and email it to myself regularly as well. any day that i make a lot of progress, i back it up

[jessicaorr]

I'm extremely paranoid about loosing data so I've got everything backed-up on DVD and flashdrives. I've never had a computer die on me though. The most I've lost is a few pages at a time due to crashes (now I tell word to auto-save every minute)

But my sister has a terrible time- she's gone through three computers in five years. She takes great care of them, so I don't know... I suppose some people just have bad luck with electronics.

Jessica- counting her blessings!

[gwendy85]

The most I've lost? Sleep and weight (haha!) Seriously, I'm sooooo paranoid when it comes to losing data (I lost my very first animation shorts which took me three days to complete in a single deadly virus attack at the age of 15) so by the time I started my novel at 19, I was ready for it. I created backups which I sent to my email and then another set of backups in http://docs.google.com and I've been happy ever since! My old computer, which contained all my files was attacked by another virus again and no files could be retrieved but since I had everything in my email, I'm safe. Go Yahoomail! Haha!

[Michael Parks]

A few lines. I'm so very aware of what a system can eat, that in the five years I've been working on this story, I've lost no more than a couple lines in between Autosaves in Word.

After each session, I run Syncback (http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html) and it copies the script to three other physical drives in my computer, and to a private FTP web site for offsite storage. Takes about 30 seconds each time I do it.

(Scroll down on that link to the bottom for the freeware version of Syncback, if you're interested).

[RedScylla]

Once I started working on computer, I haven't lost anything. When I was 14, though, I lost everything I'd ever written to the FBI, DEA, and IRS. They confiscated the contents of our house, including the six journals full of complete dreck I'd written by age 14. Dreck, yes, but the loss of those journals stunted me. I didn't write another word until I was 19.

[stormie]

Thankfully just one four-page manuscript. I misplaced it and never did the whole back-up thing with it (email, flashdrive, etc). Who knows though. It could have been the beginning of a best seller. Right.:roll:

[jessicaorr]

Once I started working on computer, I haven't lost anything. When I was 14, though, I lost everything I'd ever written to the FBI, DEA, and IRS. They confiscated the contents of our house, including the six journals full of complete dreck I'd written by age 14. Dreck, yes, but the loss of those journals stunted me. I didn't write another word until I was 19.

Redzilla, that's horrible! What a theft. Fire, flood, earthquake. Awful acts of uncontrollable nature, bad luck, sure but... the IRS! And why on earth couldn't they give them back after any investigation was completed? Words fail... I'm so sorry.

[JoNightshade]

When I was about 14 or 15 I lost the entire shebang. And that sounds like nothing, but I had spent 90% of my spare time writing since we bought our computer when I was... 11 or 12? Yes, I cried. And no, I never let that happen again. Which reminds me, I should go make another backup. ;)

[bsolah]

My laptop got stolen a few months ago, lost everything except for my current novel, two WIP shorts, and anything I'd self-published to my website. Mainly lost a couple of unworkable shorts, and two old novels that I thought I'd never touch again.

Funnily enough, this last month, one of thos novels has been resurfacing and I can't find any backups anywhere!

[Matera the Mad]

I lost the first chapter or so of my first fan-fic. Oh the pain. Ha. Worse than that was losing some fractal parameter files. I can always re-write, but only Fractal Explorer can do the fancy math.

[Fillanzea]

When I lived in Japan, I was writing my novel longhand in notebooks. Well... I'm not sure what happened, but one or two of those notebooks got lost in the moving process, and all I ended up with was tendinitis!

[maestrowork]

Two short stories. I switched computer and thought I made a backup. I did, but somehow those two files weren't on the hard drive.

Still a mystery to me.

[Chasing the Horizon]

I lost a couple thousand words off one of my novels when I switched laptops because I accidentally overwrote the newest version of the file with an older version. Because of that I never overwrite files period anymore for active WIPS (which explains how I've ended up with over 30 copies of one of my current WIPS, :D ).

It would be virtually impossible for me to lose much, because I keep copies of my writing on both my PowerBooks, my iBook, a zip drive, and my compactflash PC card. I keep hard copies of my completed novels in the trunk of my car, but it wouldn't make sense for me to try to keep backup copies of active projects anywhere outside my house because I know I wouldn't update them frequently enough. If my house ever catches fire, expect me to come running out with an armful of laptops.

[L M Ashton]

I haven't lost a thing. Not because I haven't had hard drives fail (at least three) or computers stolen (also three, although maybe four) or notebooks that died (uh, let me see - Acer craptop, Dell, Acer Ferrari... three again. What is it with three?) - I have. In spades. But I'm paranoid to start with. And, you know, sometimes paranoia pays off. :)

[Clarec]

My laptop died several months back and I knew I hadn't backed up for ages. I know better than that, I kept thinking about backing up but never got round to it. I had older copies of things but not the newer versions. Luckily my clever hubby got the laptop working long enough to copy it all on to the external hard drive then it died for good. Now I back up on to disc, external hard drive and google docs.

Looks like it takes a loss to make most of us wake up, hmm? Oh and I've forgotten a password before too, which is annoying. There wasn't much in the folder but still. ARGH!

Clare

[hammerklavier]

Just a few pages of a screenplay due to this weird bug in Celtix. When I'm using OpenOffice, I press Ctrl-S often to save and then email copies to myself whenever I've made any progress.

[J C Coy]

I've never lost more than a paragraph or two when Word has locked up a few times. I save often and back up on a jump drive all the freakin time.

[mlhernandez]

Once I started working on computer, I haven't lost anything. When I was 14, though, I lost everything I'd ever written to the FBI, DEA, and IRS. They confiscated the contents of our house, including the six journals full of complete dreck I'd written by age 14. Dreck, yes, but the loss of those journals stunted me. I didn't write another word until I was 19.

Oh. Wow. That's just crazy!

I've lost a few chapters here or there when switching between laptops or moving files to external hard drives and such. I have a bad habit of *not* reading the prompts before hitting enter. Yeah. Big difference between "merge changes" and "replace file."

[Manderley]

If I've lost anything, it hasn't been important enough to devastate me as I can't remember it.

I'm crap at doing back ups, and to be honest, I don't really care if I loose all my old articles. They've sold and earned me money already, so I don't feel the need to hang on to them. As for my fiction, my first 3 novels were so awful it wouldn't be a great loss if I didn't see them again, and the one I'm working on now, I've several copies of by default: I write longhand before transcribing it into the Mac, and then I send out chunks of it every 3 weeks to my writing buddies, using gmail, so it's saved there as well.

[KTC]

I used to be more renegade than I am now. I have, on occasion, deleted entire manuscripts that I spent a year working on...just to see them die. I don't regret doing it...but I've grown weak in my old age. I no longer delete massive manuscript files. I did lose a manuscript I was fond of in a computer crash. I still have it on paper, though...somewhere tucked into a desk drawer in a desk I no longer use. Shows you how fond I was/am of it. Nothing is forever. If it happened today I would just get over it and start over or elsewhere.

[DeleyanLee]

About 7 years ago, I took a different computer in because of booting problems (I so hated XP when it first came out). The $#%^*&%$!! techs decided the BEST thing to do is to reformat the secondary data drive to be the booting drive and wiped 25 years of writing history. 27 novels (in all versions), countless story ideas, notes, research, inspirations--GONE.

The most I could get was an apology out of the tech manager and a letter of acknowledgement from the president of the company in receipt of my letter of complaint.

Though I will note that the company went out of business within the year. Petty, but small, satisfaction there.

As a result, I have only 5 novels that era in hard copy.

[Maryn]

I lost a novel and about 40,000 words of another when my hard drive failed. About a year later, someone who'd asked for a hard copy of the novel and never gotten back to me about it (was is that bad?) gave it back.

It was that bad. I'd learned a lot during that year, I guess.

However, I'm not as good about backing things up as I might be. Last week, our son (who's good about backing up) had both his hard drive fail and his back-up, an external hard drive, destroyed in a careless mishap. He was devastated. After he came out of his room, he literally took me by the arm, walked me to my computer, and stood there until I'd emailed my writing files to myself.

Maryn, who'd hate to lose everything else but could stand it

[Serenity]

Well, for me it's not so much actually lost as thought I lost. I had four or five chapters of a story, plus world building notes (several pages worth, I'm anal that way :tongue) character bios and pictures that I thought were gone when I had to reformat my hard drive. To make matters worse (at the time) I had thrown away (yeah, stupid, I know) the hand written copies I had made during breaks at work, etc. I was mad.

Until I did a random search a few months later and found all the files stored under "My Videos" in the "My Documents" section of my computer. :e2hammer:

[ClaudiaGray]

I lost most of a short story (I'd say about 5000 words) in a cash in the late '90s. Since then, I haven't lost a thing, because I back up my work every few days. Seriously, you have to learn that lesson the first time.

[tehuti88]

I'm fortunate to not tend to lose more than a few pages if the computer crashes when I'm in the middle of writing (I lost a half hour of work once), but I've lost things in the past for different reasons. For example, childhood writings that were lost or improperly stored away and damaged. It's driving me nuts that I can't find an entire notebook of stories I wrote back around junior high. Sure, they would suck by now, but they were an important step in the direction of the writing I do today, and to have lost them just bothers me so much.

Then when the hard drive of our first computer fritzed out, I would have lost almost everything (though I probably had it on floppies) if not for DOS-SHELL where I printed it all out. I still have those printouts...lack of formatting and all. And there are various other stories where some pages of the written text or printouts are missing or damaged for various reasons. Most of my early writings were stored in the basement where it flooded and they got wet and moldy and in a few cases even decayed away. *sigh*

I think, however, you were referring to newer writing that is lost from computer crashes and such...fortunately that doesn't happen to me often since I save things to a flash drive, and post my stuff online. But when the inevitable glitch occurs and I lose something, even if it's just several paragraphs, it still steams me so much.

I usually just burst into yelling and crying and sulk for a while and then eventually redo it, albeit not nearly as good as before IMO, and move on. Really nothing else one can do.

[jennontheisland]

I lost an 8K short, fully written, almost completely revised, when my new laptop and old USB drive had some kind of disagreement.

I was writing in the car as we moved across the country. I yelled curse words at the top of my lungs, had a bit of a temper tantrum, visualized my brand new laptop tumbling down the cliff of the rocky mountains, spewing keys and drives as it crashed against the rocks.

I then resolved that whenever a little voice in my head says "email this to your CP" (like it had the night before) I will.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I've been pretty lucky. *knocks wood* I have never had a hard drive crash and I don't religiously back up my stuff. So it's a good thing I've been lucky.

I did have a thumbnail drive burn out on me and lose everything on it. I think at the time I was pretty burnt up about it, but I've forgotten if anything significant was lost (and I'm too lazy to look for that thread).

[AmusingMuse]

Geesh folks,

Can we say External Hard Drives? I have four. One for my business, one for my writing, one for my illustrating and another for my previous writings. I keep ongoing backup cds and, I use plug-ins storage while working on my laptop or my desktop. I never solely rely on hard drives.

The only work I was ever unable to save was when I was 20 and had completed my first sci fi novel. This was my first novel, the first of a two-part story. Where I had in my briefcase my second novel outline ready to go, my first book was left on my kitchen table in my apartment. A boyfriend of mine, one I recently disposed of, decided the best revenge would be to tear up my one and only hard copy of the novel and submission documents into itty-bitty pieces and scatter them all over my apartment floor, starting at the door to the balcony, where he tossed the rest to the mud below.

Taught me much, I would say. First, never let them keep a key to your place and change the locks the very next second he's out the door; Second, backup, backup, backup! Third, although impossible, have psych assessment of boyfriend candidates and if they appear to be crazier than you, do not think this inspiring to your creative side, stay clear!

[stranger]

Anyone have any suggestions on on programs/techniques that makes backing up automatic/easy

[Shadow_Ferret]

Geesh folks,

Can we say External Hard Drives? I can't say it nor do I even know what that is. Is that like the eternal candle at church?

[colettak]

If you use OpenOffice Writer (free microsoft word clone) there is a way to export and import data to and from Google Docs, which I find very useful. One click of a button and you have . It keeps them private, which is cool. The only problem I see for now is that when you upload a file it doesn't replace the old one, so you can end up having several copies of the same manuscript/chapter. It's not that much of a problem though, because it lets you see all the old versions of your stuff.

So, if you want to easily back up your stuff online, do this.

Start using OpenOffice.
Get a google docs account (should just be a google account).
Download the OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs plugin and install it.
Write.
When you want to upload a file to the internet, click the upload button, follow the prompt.

Another useful feature is that you can then write from anywhere -- the program also allows you to download with one click as well. So if you're writing from your desktop, and you're going on a trip, just get on your laptop and click the download button, and you get the latest version.

It's a really useful tool, I've found, and it looks like the guy who made it is still tweaking it to make it better.

[stranger]

Thanks for the openoffice tip. I had to cut my novel in two so that it is small enough for google docs but it works a treat.

[Paichka]

My experiences aren't as bad as some of you, but I don't have a single poem or short story from high school, middle school, or elementary school due to a computer crash.

I'd written a good 50 pages of related short stories about the misadventures of a group of kids on their way to prom...(it involved having to swipe a suit from a funeral home, a girl who accidentally drank shroom-tea and was tripping out while Jesus and the apostles climbed out of her mother's last supper painting and did the can-can...fun stuff)

Anyway, I'm still traumatized. I doubt any of it was good, but it was MINE, and now it's gone. *sigh*

[RedScylla]

Things have a way of going missing once they become evidence in a federal trial. Now why the contents of our entire house became evidence, I don't know, but it did. We never got anything back, ever. Theoretically, everything went to auction to pay tax debts, but I doubt anyone bought my childhood journals. :D

Redzilla, that's horrible! What a theft. Fire, flood, earthquake. Awful acts of uncontrollable nature, bad luck, sure but... the IRS! And why on earth couldn't they give them back after any investigation was completed? Words fail... I'm so sorry.

[C.M. Daniels]

My backpack was stolen at LAX several years back, and had the only copy of one of my novels in it. I could have cared less about any of the other stuff that was in it (PDA, cd player, passport, all kinds of fun stuff). I was heartbroken. It took me years to rewrite the ms up to the point it was at when it got swiped. One of these years, I might actually finish it.

[Takvah]

A couple of chapters. You can't ever get it back... you can't ever recreate it... it'll be something almost like what you did, but it might lack a certain nuance. Why am I typing so hard that I feel like I might press the keys through the bottom of the board? GRRRRR!!!!

[bsolah]

Things have a way of going missing once they become evidence in a federal trial. Now why the contents of our entire house became evidence, I don't know, but it did. We never got anything back, ever. Theoretically, everything went to auction to pay tax debts, but I doubt anyone bought my childhood journals. :D

That's a kind of sad and yet cool story at once. Imagine if someone did buy those journals and read them, what would they think? Imagine if someone bought an old journal with a story written from the perspective of a serial killer in First Person. Would they think it was fiction or that they got the journal of a real serial killer?

[Cato]

You're crazy if you don't regularly store your MS in your email folder, or somewhere online.

[Nateskate]

If my house ever catches fire, expect me to come running out with an armful of laptops.

Over a year ago we had this flooding in the area. The water came up to our door frame and we decided to flee. The first thing I did was to grab the computer and put it up high. Still, we had minutes to get out and I think if we waited 20 more minutes, we'd have gotten trapped in moving water.

Strangely, the water never came any higher, though it kept raining, and the place we fled to got it worse than our house.

[Nateskate]

A couple of chapters. You can't ever get it back... you can't ever recreate it... it'll be something almost like what you did, but it might lack a certain nuance. Why am I typing so hard that I feel like I might press the keys through the bottom of the board? GRRRRR!!!!


That's true. Whenever I lost something, I could never duplicate it. It's like starting over.

The worst thing about this hard drive failing was that I couldn't recover any of the software, only what things I could re-load. I wound up buying another version of Windows XP so that my software- some which is pretty old, would still be compatable.

The other thing, was that I was able to recover my M-word library, so I didn't have to re-save every word in the world I created. But it had to be loaded onto a new version of MS Office.

It's kind of like losing your wallet and having to replace all the credit cards. It's not always the loss of money that's maddening, it's the hassles.

[Clair Dickson]

I lost 2k this summer-- the most I've ever lost. And it never should have happened! But the school computer, piece of craptacular junk that it was, simply refused to play nice with either of my flash drives. It wouldn't recognize one at all (which was really strange, because every other computer in existence, but not in that particular computer lab was fine.). And with the other flash drive, the computer went and corrupted my Word File. I was able to recover everything... EXCEPT the last 2-3k or so. The last 2k was the only bit not tranfered to my home computer.

Otherwise, I back up rather frequently. Not daily... but I've always known when my hard drive was on the verge of failure. (Almost every time, there will be signs and symptoms of a hard drive making's last turn.)

And I'm sure, somewhere in the boxes of CDs and floppy disks, I have everything I'd ever wished to forget I'd written. ;-) THe only problem is that I create a NEW backup CD at the end of every semester... I have piles of CDs with various stages of stuff on them. I think they're breeding in the wee hours of the morning when I'm asleep...

[roncouch]

Anyone have any suggestions on on programs/techniques that makes backing up automatic/easy

Do a search on your computer - sometimes the info is good, and easy to understand. Go to Search on windows, Type in Backing Up Files - good luck!

Ron

[JoNightshade]

I lost a couple thousand words off one of my novels when I switched laptops because I accidentally overwrote the newest version of the file with an older version. Because of that I never overwrite files period anymore for active WIPS (which explains how I've ended up with over 30 copies of one of my current WIPS, :D ).

This is my nightmare whenever I make a backup copy (which I drag into a USB fob thingie) - that I will drag in the wrong direction and replace my work with the old version. AAAAAAAAGH! So far I have not done it, but if I ever do I am going to freak out.

I can't see never overwriting files, though, because then everything would be sooooo much more disorganized than it already is. Blech.

[Perle_Rare]

I seem to have misplaced my muse. Did anyone see it? Anyone?

Documents? Nope. Haven't lost any yet but I'm just a beginner so I haven't really written much yet. I'm pretty well organized for backups though so I'm all set in case my muse chooses to come back...

[Gray Rose]

I lost the whole thing in February. Novel AND dissertation. I had most of my "clean" drafts backed up, but none of the background files. For the novel that meant backstory, character sketches, plot outlines, bits written non-sequentially. For the dissertation that meant bibliography files, data sheets, excel databases for preliminary stat analysis, bits and pieces of drafts of papers in various stages of completion, handouts, etc.

I could have lived without it. After all, my "surface" files survived.

I paid $$ to have my hard drive restored.

Half a year later, I've filed my diss and finished my novel. So yes, I needed those files, and needed to spend that money. But now I use a program, MozyHome, which encrypts and backs up all of my files once a day to an on-line location. Best 5$ a month I can spend. I recommend this solution warmly.

[AmusingMuse]

I can't say it nor do I even know what that is. Is that like the eternal candle at church?


They're separate from your desktop or laptop hard drives that you can plug into either. I use Smart Disk by Verbatim 500 GB, USB 2.0

They're fantastic and I couldn't live without them now. With the size of the work that I've inputed over 20 years... to lose all that would be devastating. You should look it up. Would be worth the money.

[AmusingMuse]

I seem to have misplaced my muse. Did anyone see it? Anyone?

Documents? Nope. Haven't lost any yet but I'm just a beginner so I haven't really written much yet. I'm pretty well organized for backups though so I'm all set in case my muse chooses to come back...

Ummm...

[Nateskate]

About 7 years ago, I took a different computer in because of booting problems (I so hated XP when it first came out). The $#%^*&%$!! techs decided the BEST thing to do is to reformat the secondary data drive to be the booting drive and wiped 25 years of writing history. 27 novels (in all versions), countless story ideas, notes, research, inspirations--GONE.

The most I could get was an apology out of the tech manager and a letter of acknowledgement from the president of the company in receipt of my letter of complaint.

Though I will note that the company went out of business within the year. Petty, but small, satisfaction there.

As a result, I have only 5 novels that era in hard copy.

This sounds like a world record loss. It would have broken a less stout-hearted being and would have absolutely crushed me.

[Nateskate]

This is my nightmare whenever I make a backup copy (which I drag into a USB fob thingie) - that I will drag in the wrong direction and replace my work with the old version. AAAAAAAAGH! So far I have not done it, but if I ever do I am going to freak out.

I can't see never overwriting files, though, because then everything would be sooooo much more disorganized than it already is. Blech.

Lol, if there's anything about being Attention Deficit, I've redone entire chapters, because in switching between External Drives and the Internal Drive, I forgot which one I was working on. It's really pathetic.