Yesterday's work has scarpered. Any ideas?

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Goldenleaves

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Right ... there. No, there. No, wait -
Yesterday I went through my WIP and for editing purposes placed certain phrases and descriptions at the beginning of each scene for the first few chapters.

I push save fairly regularly when I work and at the end of the day back up on a stick.

Today I've gone into my WIP. All of yesterdays work is gone. So I went to my stick. None of yesterdays work is in that either.

The possibilities I see: I'Ve hallucinated or mislaid yesterday, someone has had it away on their toes with yesterday or some UFO is having a laugh with time.

I know I did this work and didn't dream it because visitors interrupted me halfway through and I was ignoring them while I saved everything carefully and went into standby mode. I have checked that with those visitors.

Are there any other possible explanations for this? Any? Please? Someone?
 
alleycat

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Do you have multiple versions of the same work?

Did you put the words in as Review comments?
 

Goldenleaves

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Right ... there. No, there. No, wait -
Ah? Review comments? I'll have a look.

I'm using Word. Recent documents, I'll give it a go.

Currently redoing it, blasted nuisance. It's easier the second time though. Thanks for the suggestions.
 

Goldenleaves

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Right ... there. No, there. No, wait -
File not found clicking lower versions of document in recent documents.

I had only two copies, one on the stick, one on the desktop. I have three now because I renamed one to help me look.

I only worked in the main body, flicking through the work using comments marking beginning of scenes.

Thanks for your help. It's probably going to be one of those annoying mysteries - the kind that NEVER happens with a pen or typewriter.

The price we pay for easy editing. :e2shrug:
 
mccardey

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I once found a draft I thought was gone, by highlighting a sentence from the last copy and doing a search-everything.

(It was in the dropbox. I'd saved it to dropbox instead of copying it there.)

Good luck.

Technology. Making your life easier. *sigh*
 

Krystal Heart

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Sometimes you press certain keys without realizing it, and those words are gone, and you don't notice, and when you save the changes you've eliminated all the modifications you've done. It happened to me yesterday. Fortunately, it was only 10 words I lost and I did notice it. I recommend Dropbox.
 
Reziac

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I have my current hard disk more or less mirrored on an external drive. Sometimes when I've saved a copy to the external, I forget I was just there, and don't realise the next save goes to the same place if I haven't yet switched it back. Then I'm scratching my head next time I go to open the file I was sure I'd saved on the main hard disk...

It's very easy to save up a directory without realising it, too. Or to accidentally rename or otherwise relocate the file. I once found my main work file mysteriously on the root, named just 'Y' ... apparently I'd hit the Y for "Yes, save the damn file" after hitting spacebar instead of tab or F8 or whatever it was in that program, and wound up with this surplus mystery file as a result, instead of saving what I thought I had.

Anyway, have you run a search for the filename? if that fails, for some string you know is in the contents, like an unusual character name (but not with any special characters) ??
 
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