I am continuing the long, slow process of reclaiming my ‘lost’ computer files and saving them into my new file structure … and as I am doing it, I am discovering all sorts of stuff that I initially thought that I had copies of but that have actually gone missing.
This task is taking me much longer that I thought it would take and until it is completed, I will only be writing blog posts as and when I can. I have a couple already written in draft form, but they need tidying up and I don’t want to spend time doing that when I could be getting my computer problem sorted.
As they used to say on the TV years ago … normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
Best of luck on your recovery efforts.
ReplyDeleteMark Cordone,
DeleteCheers! I’m slowly sorting out the problem.
All the best,
Bob
Dear Bob.
ReplyDeleteI was very sorry to read of your problems and hope that you’ve not lost too many important files. Creating a new file structure is hard work, though I do not think that you should blame yourself for having started with Microsoft’s defaults, such as “Documents” and “Pictures” as these are quite reasonable “top level” directories and, as you have pointed out, what matters is the choice of sub-directories, sub-sub-directories and so on to however many levels are required.
When looking for files I’ve found that it really helps if you use long directory names – so that there is no doubt what they should contain – and also use long/detailed file names. The latter is more work when you create files but, in my experience, is well worth the effort. Of course, this used to be impossible due to Window’s – and some program’s – limits on the maximum length of the {file path+name} but this should not now be a problem, as long as “long paths” are enabled in Windows and you are not using too old a version of a software application.
These days the “standard” advice to PC users is the keep at least three copies of any files you care about, of which one copy can, if you wish, be on a cloud system, and one should be held locally but off site (which can just be an external hard drive you keep in the garden shed, provided that you think the shed will escape when the house burns down). I strongly suspect that the great majority of PC users do not follow such advice and will lose most or all of their files if they have a drive failure, though the complaints I hear of are mostly from smart phone users who have lost years of photos due to not backing them up.
I have to admit that I find it hard to remember to update my “offsite” drive and, even if I manage to do it weekly, it still misses the most recent changes. However, using OneDrive and Google Drive with both set up to keep local copies of all files ensures that I have at least three local copies of my important files, though this does depend on the fact that we have three working PCs (mine, my wife’s and the old Windows 10 machine I keep as it has a DVD drive) and most people are probably not so lucky,
All the best,
Mike
Mike Hall (Mike),
DeleteThanks for the excellent advice. In actual fact, this problem has made me face up to the problem of having a fairly chaotic structure to my computer files and having a better disaster plan.
In the case of the former, the new structure I am developing will be much more precise in describing what is in each sub-directory etc. The latter is a somewhat more complex problem to solve, but it will take that form of at least one cloud backup plus a physical removable hard drive back up that will be kept in a fireproof location away from the computers I use.
All the best,
Bob
Thank you for using those words "disaster plan". This got me thinking about mine and realising that I hadn't made recovery drives for our PCs for 3+ years (MS recommends doing so annually). So now I've hauled out the old USB sticks and am creating new drives (experience tells me that this will ensure that I don't need them, as I've only had a problem needing so drastic a solution when I've not had even an old recovery drive),
DeleteAll the best,
Mike
Mike Hall (Mike),
DeleteIt’s a phrase I used to use regularly with my IT students! Some of them learned the hard way that if you didn’t have backups, you were courting disaster.
I’m currently upgrading my OpenDrive to hold 1 Tb of storage, and once that’s done, I’m going to make an up to date recovery disk.
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
DeleteGetting 1 Tb of OpenDrive storage is why I pay £59.99 per annum for an Office 360 subscription rather than use something free like Libre Office*. I think of it as buying cloud storage and getting a free office software suite to go with it (which I'm pretty sure is the reverse of what Microsoft thinks is happening).
(* there is also the fact that Libre Office had (still has?) subtle styling incompatibilities with Word),
Best regards,
Mike
Mike Hall (Mike),
DeleteAs you will read in today’s blog post, I have been experiencing problems with OneDrive. It appears that my laptop’s memory isn’t large enough to deal with transferring the files that are currently saved on a working backup removable hard drive to OneDrive. I am currently ‘clearing out’ my laptop’s memory in the hope that this will solve the problem.
All the best,
Bob
My Del computer's motherboard died about 3 years ago, I took it down to a local computer and they recovered most of my stuff.
ReplyDelete£75 money well spent. However I lost some stuff but it was not the end of the world. Still a pain in the bum Bob, onward and upward.
Willz.
Willz,
Tiberian General (Willz),
DeleteI think that if the motherboard had failed like yours did, it might have been less of a trauma than seeing that I had lost at least 5% of my files ... and most of them being things that I was working on!
Years ago I bought a device that one can attach to to a hard drive that has been taken out of a computer so that any data on it can be copied onto a new computer, and it was money well spent. Unfortunately, it doesn't work if part or all of the hard drive fails.
I am gradually getting on top of the problem and have been able to piece together some of the missing files, but some are irretrievably lost.
Its all a bit of a b*gg*er, but it could have been worse!
All the best,
Bob