The Hard Drive died last week, meaning the vast majority of the stories I've written exist only in online form. Unfortunately this means that new chapters for Bunneh! plus stuff being rewritten and chapters from pulled stories have been lost forever. The Laptop is being repaired, so hopefully I'll be able to start writing again soon (if the muse will let meh!).

Oh, that sucks. Maybe someone has copies of pulled stories or chapters. & sometimes they can recover files. Good luck with that.

My H/D died a while back & all on it was lost. Lots of photos & an original story (~30 pgs). I had backed up everything else earlier that week.

Maybe that's why I still sometimes write 1st draft by hand.

Good luck with that.

RJ

Oh, WOW, Walter! I'm so very sorry!!

'Puter death is never an easy thing, believe me - I've only been through it, like, four or five times now. O.o

I will cross appendages in the hopes that they can restore the poor dear to some semblance of health!!!!!!

~~Wiccan~~

I'm so sorry, Walter. All that work and creativity! Which brings up a topic I have wondered about, memory sticks. My husband bought me one a couple of years ago, to store my stories on, in case something like this would happen. The thing was all full of advertising, and I didn't know how to get past it to actually USE it to store anything. At the same time, there were a lot of warnings in the media about memory sticks and even those digital photo frames containing viruses that would transmit to any computer they came into contact with, so I freaked out and gave up on the concept. So, could Walter (or I) buy some brand of memory stick that is safe and not full of advertising, and use it to save our work from some computer meltdown crisis?

Laptop is back and in full operation again. New Hard Drive formatted for Windows 7, New Battery, and other fixings.

HOORAY!!!!!!

So glad you got things going again... being without 'puter-san is a royal pain in the tush for me, so I can well imagine it was MOST irritating.

~~Wiccan~~

Good news, Walter. Could any of the lost data from the old drive be recovered?

knifethrower wrote:
I'm so sorry, Walter. All that work and creativity! Which brings up a topic I have wondered about, memory sticks. My husband bought me one a couple of years ago, to store my stories on, in case something like this would happen. The thing was all full of advertising, and I didn't know how to get past it to actually USE it to store anything. At the same time, there were a lot of warnings in the media about memory sticks and even those digital photo frames containing viruses that would transmit to any computer they came into contact with, so I freaked out and gave up on the concept. So, could Walter (or I) buy some brand of memory stick that is safe and not full of advertising, and use it to save our work from some computer meltdown crisis?

Well, I don't know about advertising because it never happened to me before. Memory sticks shouldn't have anything on them when you buy them, but you should format it after you buy it in any case to be on the safe side. They can get infected from executable files just like any computer and they carry the virus around and can spread it, but I think that depends very much on the type of virus or what it's attached to.
Formatting your memory stick wipes it clean and gets rid of any bugs, but it also erases any data you had on it (so you'll have to save that somewhere else before, if you know it's not infested). It's very easy to do: just plug it into your computer, open 'My Computer' (I'm a Windows user, don't know how this applies to Mac, but I don't think it's all that different), right-click on the name of your memory stick and you should see an option to 'Format...' in the drop list.
A good antivirus program will scan any stick attached to your computer and warn you if it has any 'unwanted guests' on it. You should run a scan on it periodically too.
An external hard-drive is also a good solution. They cost more, but have a lot of space and are useful because they extend your computer's internal memory by quite a bit. But they can get as easily infected by a virus as any computer or memory stick. I really can't recommend any brands though because I don't know what's available where you live.

Wow, very detailed, user friendly advice, Sakura! You have a real gift for conveying information (and I will definitely be making use of your advice). You deserve tons of good karma points, but I can only add one at a time. You should be a teacher!

Gosh, that sucks losing everything like that. It's happened to me before, recently actually.