Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Writing Wednesday: Two Words to Remember... Backup Drive

Some days I feel like I've got this adulting thing down, and then there are days like... well... like all of October so far, when I wish there was a playbook. And I really wish my mom were still alive, if only to laugh with me at my mistakes.

When was the last time YOU backed up your computer?

If you can't answer off the top of your head it's been too long.

When was the last time you made a backup of the manuscript you're currently working on? And I don't mean the autosave feature, or hitting the save icon at the top of the page. I mean, creating a backup document separate from your original.

Again, if you can't answer it's been too long.

If you don't have an external backup drive, you know what you should ask for this holiday season. Not sexy, but very important.

If at least one person reading this blog gets an external drive for Christmas or Hanukah, I will be thrilled. Full disclosure, I got one last Christmas. I hadn't used it yet. So get it - AND USE IT.

Okay, rant about over. Except for the iPad trauma that coincided with my computer crash. I only use my iPad as a reading device, occasionally for email... and I use the notebook feature to write all my reviews. Makes it easy to slip back and forth between the book and the review, and it's portable. And - I thought - pretty safe.

Except. When I went to transfer all my finished - finished - reviews to my blog the other day (also part of my October surprise) ALL OF MY NOTES WERE GONE. DELETED. MISSING. Except for the very last one I wrote, Out of Bounds, by Julia Quinn, which is the last post on this blog before this current post. That one didn't get erased. WTF???

If anyone has an answer to how I might recover those, please please please post it in the comments.

I'm back up to speed with my (overdue) WIP and next will be all the reviews I promised and now need to rewrite.

Happy Writing (and Re-Writing) to All!


17 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry. My computer crashed and I swore I'd be better about making backups. I am, but not better enough. I still go a few months at a time, which I really shouldn't. I hope you're able to recover your work!

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    1. Hey Jennifer - hope this was a timely reminder for you to go do your backup!

      I think it's a right of passage when you're an author... a lesson we should only need to learn once, though.

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  2. Oh, my gosh, how awful! Here's hoping you can get everything back--- I know I should back up--but I just forget. I've had partial losses (never, thank heavens, as bad as yours). And after those, I save constantly. Then as time goes by, I just … let it go. Thanks for the very timely reminder!

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    1. Yes! Go do that backup right now!

      I'm the same way. I know I'll be paranoid for the next month - maybe the next project, too. And then...

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  3. Oh dear, my heart fell when I read the title. Losing computer files has to be the #1 fear of most modern writers. I've been good about backing up for several years. My entire computer gets backed-up every Sunday on two separate external hard drives, which are then locked in a fire safe that's rated for digital equipment. And I have another external drive that's for my current WIP which gets updated at the end of every day. Not that I'm paranoid or anything... Funnily enough, during a house move last winter, I lost a paper copy of a scene that I desperately wanted for my then WIP. I hadn't typed it into my computer so there was no copy. I'll probably find it now that the manuscript is all edited and in galley form.

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    1. Every Sunday! That's awesome. I need to get into that sort of routine. Having a specific day of the week makes all kinds of sense. Thanks for that tip!

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  4. did you try going into your drive history? If you don't know how to do it, a local computer store can show you. I had this happen once and they were able to recover all my stuff with just a few keystrokes. Just a thought.

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    1. My husband is a walking IT department (for our entire extended family...) and he tried to help me... my problem was related to a Windows upgrade of some sort, so it's a little more complicated, apparently.

      He's the helpful soul who put the external drive in my christmas stocking. So festive, right? But now I wish I'd taken him more seriously when he offered to help then. It's all backed up now.

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  5. AND BTW - I now have an external backup drive that is connected to my computer at all times. It automatically backs everything up every hour. And yes, I did get it as a present ( I bought for myself) when my computer crashed last year!!!

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    1. Good for you! Presents we buy ourselves count too - anyone reading this who doesn't have an external drive, you can buy it for yourself too!!

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  6. Mac makes it easy with Time Machine, which does a full backup when you set it up, then takes incremental backups every hour or so. That way you can get back to a good backup if you need to. I have a 3 TB external backup drive that's been on the job for 7 years now. For sure, set up the backup drive, which hopefully has software that you can use to take automatic backups. It's worth every penny.

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    1. Thanks, John. Time Machine sounds cool - I wonder if there is a Windows equivalent?

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  7. Just in time for Halloween, a writer’s nightmare. I have the Mac time machine as well and I always use a thumb drive. Totally ironic that the web knows everything about us yet we can lose our creative output if we don’t back it to the max.

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    1. Right? Like they say, technology is great until it doesn't work. I've heard that again and again this month in so many situations - Mercury must be in retrograde or something.

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  8. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I use a flashdrive to back up my manuscripts, but should be better at it. Hopefully you can get everything back.

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    1. I worked with an editing client who backed everything on a thumb drive - so many versions, she'd lose track of which was the one she wanted... and then she lost the thumb drive.

      Be careful. Those are small. Easily misplaced.

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  9. Been there, done that, didn't even by the t-shirt and don't want to do it again. I now back up my work three different places (external hard drive, internal hard drive and thumb drive) before I close out for the day.

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