Lost.fucking.everything

Want to cry. 

I lost my whole fucking manuscript. Fuck fuck fuck.

I’ve looked for it, I’ve tried every thing, but it’s gone.

I made a mistake. Instead of ctrl-S, I pressed ctrl-A, then pasted something, THEN saved that version, effectively wiping out a weeks worth of writing. When I tried to undo the action, Word bombed (FUCK YOU MICROSOFT) and I lost all the previous work. All I have now is the last ‘paste’.

I can’t believe it. 

Yes yes, I know, I should NEVER have had only version saved. I am an asshole. FUCK!!!!!! I obviously wont ever make that mistake again. Bit late now though.

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

So. We start again.

FUCK.

Comments

[Samie]

Oh Honey- so sorry for you! Hopefully the re-write will go faster, since you already figured out what to say!

[Sarah]

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh So sorry!

[maia]

Ugh.. Some advice? save to disk each and every time you so much as change a sentence. BTDT, I know the pain..

[Danielle]

Oh, Tertia. How awful! So sorry that's happened to you.

[Stephanie]

Oh honey. That truly sucks. Drink more wine. It won't5 bring your manuscript back, but will make you feel better :-)

[Menita]

Fuck doesn't even begin to cover it.

[emma]

Oh ugh. You have my total empathy. If it makes you feel any better (and I know it won't) I have done this so many times that they really should just take the damn computer off me already and give me a pencil (with no eraser).
Drink wine and weep. It doesn't fix it, but you feel a bit better after awhile.

[Meggan]

Oh, horrible! I feel so bad for you! I agree with previous commenters - perhaps wine will help.

[Dani]

Fuck... fuck... FUUUUUCK! Holy shit, woman. That wasn't a very G & D thing to do. You work with computer geeks all day.... haven't they taught you anything?!?!

I want to cry for you. That totally sucks. Did you bang your head on the monitor? I would have.

Well, you must have those parts pretty well thought out by now and they should come easier the second go-around. Second time is a charm, right?

Have a glass of 'Ormarins on me.
xoxo

[eve]

BOOOOO to technology!
Do you know any technogeeks? Nothing is ever really "deleted" on a computer, a lot of information is hidden in the deep recesses of those Word files. Perhaps a guru could recover something.

If it's any consolation, the band GreenDay was working on their last album when all their material was stolen. They started again and ended up with a Grammy!

[metamanda]

google "windows hard drive delete recovery"

there are several links to programs you can download to help you retrieve what you lost. the first one (http://www.recovermyfiles.com/) looks fine, though it's $70. compared to several weeks worth of work, I expect $70 may be well worth it.

and also {{hug}}... losing data is so depressing and frustrating. I really hope this helps.

[Janine]

Eep. That's horrid, muriel. Actually commented on yr last post re writing, but then closed the pg before sending it - wanted to say that if you need help, please shout our way.

[metamanda]

DIY DataRecovery DataBack v1.0 looks to have a free trial, or if you pay for it it's $23. I expect at that price it will be less user-friendly.

unerase is about $45.

a better hacker than i could perhaps recover your work without paying for software. :\

ok, i'll stop with the assvice. good luck!

[Lindsey]

NO!!!!!!!!!

[C@th]

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Fuckerooni

Fuckpoop

Fuckity.

Phuckaduck

im so sorry T.

[Carly]

You probably have already tried it - but sometimes word saves temp files - I'm assuming you're on a PC & not a Mac? - you could try looking in the temp directories (I;m on Windows XP, mine are C:\Windows\Temp and C:\Documents & Settings\\Local Settings\Temp)

You've probably already tried it, but in my directories there are thousands of little hidden *.doc files hiding...

Going back to lurking now ;)

Carly

[Kate]

Have you tried to do a restore to your system to the day before you lost the data? It might just work...and worth a try. I've done similar things...and know it really sucks.

[Lisa]

Damn! That sucks. I'm sorry to hear that. I don't know much about computers though. If I run into a problem that can't be corrected by restarting the computer, I'm screwed.

[beth]

there's always a way to get deleted data back. it may not be complete, but there are ways. try the resources people mentioned to you above. just be careful not to save anything else to your hard disk until you've exhausted the possibilities for recovery--saving to your hard disk might overwrite the file where it's hiding, and then you're really dead meat unless you work for the Department of Defense.

[Nancy]

That's awful. That's happened to me before too, what a horrible feeling.

[Leggy]

Ugh- I had that happen on a term paper once and it sucks big time. Try some of the techniques others are suggesting (temp files, recovering hard drive, etc.) Maybe a miracle will happen?

[Orange]

Why don't you store an extra copy somewhere else, too, somewhere that it'll be safe if your computer were to disappear from the planet? Save pieces as draft blog posts, or e-mail them to yourself or a friend (like me...because I'm too impatient to wait for it in book form!), store them via gmail. Later on, you can reassemble the pieces into a full manuscript.

And do you have Word set to auto-save every X number of minutes? (Does it still have that function?) That used to be a lifesaver for me.

P.S. FUUUUUCK!

[Jenergy]

Argh!!! Tertia, I'm so sorry. What a terrible thing to have happen. I hope some of these recovery suggestions pan out for you!

[Judy]

Think of it as an opportunity to work under intense pressure. I do better in those circumstances, apparently, since I'm in them constantly!

[Rosemary Grace]

Oh Gods. That sinking gut feeling of lost files.

Last week I lost an entire FOLDER, with a year's worth of data and analysis, and pretty charts made from said data. I used Norton SystemWorks Disk Doctor, which has a file recovery thing. It was really easy too, it just pulled up everything it could find, and I clicked "recover" for everything that was a word or excell file. Got my data back.

It even recovers the autosaved versions your computer won't normally show you. I'd hope that it would work for you too.

It helps if you have a data stick or external hard drive to recover stuff to, to avoid overwriting anything you're still trying to find.

[mirabel]

Uggh. That sucks. I'm so sorry. The hard drive on my computer recently died, and among other things, I lost ALL of my honeymoon photos because I was dumb an hadn't backed them up. I hope the rewrite goes quickly, or maybe even that you are able to recover some data per others suggestions above.

[King Rat]

So sorry this happened. It's so frustrating. It's happened to me many times, but the one that was the worst was when I spent all Sunday writing a history essay in high school (and somehow not at all saving it? what was I thinking?). After ceremoniously putting the last period on the last sentence, I proudly leaned back in my chair and put up my feet on the desk so as to admire a good day's work and whoops, accidentally hit the power button on the front of the CPU. Gone. Many tears of frustration ensued. Lots of fuck-ing, and not the good kind.

Since then I have learned my lesson - always use a laptop.

[projgen]

Ugh, so sorry, Tertia. Hopefully, one of the above suggestions will work?! I've never lost that much data before, but I know how painful it was to lose *any* so I can kinda empathize.

Well, if you can't get the data back, work that much better on take 2!

big hugs!

[Jill]

Nothing can help that feeling when you've lost it. fuckityfuck.

DH is a writer and I recommend 3 things: Saving to a pen/jump/mini drive often. Second, print out at least once a week - ancient technique, but worth it when you lose it. Thirdly, there is a program that records every keystroke. So then you can go to the file and copy the keystrokes back if you need to. Word of caution - not very wise to have if you are having cybersex with your e-lover - it will record every keystroke of passion.

[Suzie-Q.]

Agree with all "fuck" related comments above re; losing your work. I do the same except i have a crappy old lap-top that crashes all the time and makes me lose things. You would think after 5 years and 4 emergency retrievals and repairs that I would get a fucking zip disk...
Good luck. I hope you find your data.
Meanwhile, my advice:

Start drinking heavily.

{{{{{{{Big Hugs}}}}}}}}} to you T.

[Xilerui]

I'd second the temp file search; I had exactly the same thing happen with a dissertation document, and it turned out that my version of Word had efficiently gone and saved the document as a temp file in a place completely unrelated to where I thought I'd been saving it all along. Worth a look...

[Gretchen]

Absolutely totally sucks. Been there, done that. Never anything all that important though. I have cried after losing business emails or letters that I have spent hours perfecting.

Since that happened a couple of times, I have gotten a bit paranoid. Now, when I am writing a paper or long anything I will do a copy and paste into an email and then email it to myself off my computer, like my gmail acct. It loses all the formatting but the text is there. Do it all the time and have never had to use it to reconstruct anything so far.

I HATE learning lessons the hard way. Poor dear!

[kris]

That is really fucked up! I am so sorry. I agree with advice to back up w/ paper copy. I had a friend who kept copies of dissertation work in the freezer, lest a fire strike her house.

[unexplained]

In addition to all the other suggestions, what I do when I'm working on a manuscript, grant app, whatever - any document bigger than 10 pages - is save a new version of it each day that I'm working on it. Disk space is cheap and plentiful anymore, and that way if I cut some text that later I'd like to get back, it's there somewhere. I do whatever is new on that particular day in another color font, track the changes (and accept them all before starting the next day)... Just my $.02 American...