Writer's Nightmare: Not backing up

[jastius]

i have two nanowri mo accounts.. one for the camp nano one for november nano.. i run the days work to one or the other, right after i word count. i also back up any new research files i have this way. ( build a new doc everyday as well as the old doc., save the new doc..)

ratsy check your back up files.. and try kingsoft office and olive office.. free downloads and olive will open files and find files that are hidden to other programs or won't open. .. then download zoho docs. it is a free office as well, with a free auto matic file back up. if you have a google account and a microsoft account, these too will automatically update.

on my tablet i have about three notepads .. i am always file copying between them.
then there is a one tg external hard drive that is auto set to back up my files twice a day. i got that for seventeen ninty nine at staples.
then there is one office and dropbox.
all of them back up automatically.

i use a chip reader as well as sticks.. i like the chips better as they are less corruptable then the usb. and its easy enough to insert the chip and auto set the back up.

if i lost my artwork i would just be bereft.

ratsy take out pen and paper and outline the last chapter, adding in all the bits you remember.. then take that with you for the rewrite.

you can reset your computer to an earlier time and date and recover the file that way..

and pm lenny. he knows computers.

 

[Susan Boulton]

I lost a lot of work years ago when my first computer died. Never let it happen again. I have used various methods and still do. Just chose the one that works for you.

 

[Juliana]

After each day of new work I back up on a flashdrive and then email the new version to an account I only use for writing. Has worked well so far and it's quick and easy. But since I only work in one place (laptop) it's easier to do this than someone who works on multiple platforms (ipad, phone, compuet...).

 

[Michael Coorlim]

I write with Scrivener, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It keeps each scene or chapter in its own separate text file, and allows you to compile them together into a plethora of formats including .doc, .epub, .mobi, and .pdf. Very useful, very versatile, as you can make and keep notes right in the program.

I save my writing to a dropbox folder, which means that it's accessible through any computer I use, and that I can "roll back" to previous versions in case of accident. I also keep the .psd files for when I'm designing covers, and the InDesign files for paperback layouts in the same book's dropbox folder.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

So you don't really have backup, Dropbox is a solution for sharing, it's not a reliable backup solution.
Which wordprocessor is used is irrelevant to the issue of backing up.

 

[Michael Coorlim]

Dropbox allows you to "roll back" to an earlier revision of a file (anytime within the past month) effectively serving as a backup, and Scrivener allows you to create "snapshot" backups of your files as you work.

I got backups coming out of my ears, hombre.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Scrivener allows you to create "snapshot" backups

As does every other editor in existence

Dropbox allows you to "roll back" to an earlier revision of a file

The equivalent is possible on every "cloud service".

Does Dropbox backup? When? Where to? It's fragile compared with an HDD kept off site.
Cloud services are a convenience. Unless you 100% know how they work it do you really want to recommend a convenient sharing service that's been hacked numerous times?

 

[Michael Coorlim]

You are entitled to believe that I don't "really have backup", but dropbox + scrivener have gotten me through the loss of two laptops, and consider it to be good enough for my purposes.

I would absolutely recommend both or either to anyone worried about a situation like the OP's.

 

[Phyrebrat]

You are entitled to believe that I don't "really have backup", but dropbox + scrivener have gotten me through the loss of two laptops, and consider it to be good enough for my purposes.

I would absolutely recommend both or either to anyone worried about a situation like the OP's.

I wanted to voice my agreement with these sentiments; most especially the recommendation of Scrivener, which seems to be an ongoing bone of contention with writers in the same sense that Marmite is (luckily for me I love both).

In the spirit that this is a supportive writer's forum, I don't think it is encouraging to deride newer members' choices of backup and word-processing, especially when we're trying to encourage newer members to enter the 75 and 300 word challenges. As Michael has said, it works for him, and I doubt he will be blaming anyone on Chrons if his method does not work. For me, I have learnt through this thread that I should start backing up - you'd be horrified with me if I told you I have never backed anything up. It's stupid because I use Dropbox so I am going to sync my writing folder to it after this! My budget is also a bit hand-to-mouth so I can't invest in all the backup solutions that require purchase, but I would invest in an external hard drive if I could.

It's like the plot-or-not discussion. What works for you, works for you, (in terms of keeping you happy).

pH

 

[Venusian Broon]

My budget is also a bit hand-to-mouth so I can't invest in all the backup solutions that require purchase, but I would invest in an external hard drive if I could.

pH

A couple of small USB sticks won't cost the earth (a few pounds for 8G ones on Amazon I see) and mean that you can physically keep copies of your work all over the place. (i.e. If your office burns down and all your harddrives and sticks are melted into a pile of ash that was your desk...)
Of course you will have copies on the cloud, emailed on Google etc...but I personally like carrying about one stick with everything on it - so that I can work on it on other computers as well as the above arguments about keeping copies off-site - but they won't need internet either.

They of course don't stop you overwriting your own work or copying the wrong file from one place and the more systems you have the more laborious it is backing everything up, buy hey, whoever said life was easy?

 

[Droflet]

Oh, that reminds me, I haven't back up onto a USB in weeks. Thanks for the nudge.

 

[Wanderlog]

I don't like proprietary backup software or devices as there is no assurance the next OS / laptop etc supports it.

The you can simply switch to another backup solution and create as much backups with it as you want. Backups are, well, just backups - you need them only if something goes wrong with your master file.

Sane IT dept? Whoever heard of one of those?

I did. Actually, I work there.

 

[Nick B]

Don't rely on any single mingle method is important too. Webmail is easy to lose via account stealing, cloud services can be hacked ( what would happen if one suddenly went out of business?) physical drives such as usb drives can suddenly jus drop dead ( ive had a few thumb drives die on me) .
So, i use dropbox, save back ups localy on my notebook and use a usb drive. I guess its better to be paranoid than sorry.

 

[ratsy]

Thank you to everyone for your advice and recommendations. I just checked my work computer to see if I had a copy kicking around it, and I don't have anything with the latest stuff on it. I guess I will have to do a rewrite unless I can somehow figure out how to fix the file. No big deal...one of the scenes was one i posted here for critique so hopefully that is still there!

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

Don't rely on any single mingle method is important too. Webmail is easy to lose via account stealing, cloud services can be hacked ( what would happen if one suddenly went out of business?) physical drives such as usb drives can suddenly jus drop dead ( ive had a few thumb drives die on me) .
So, i use dropbox, save back ups localy on my notebook and use a usb drive. I guess its better to be paranoid than sorry.

Yup. I have dropbox, a thumbdrive on my keychain, a USB drive at home, and I ^c/^v my DOCX file every once in a while to make a copy.

If all of those go at once, chances are I'm having bigger problems than the loss of some work.

 

[LittleStar]

I haven't read through all the responses, but A few months back I had a whole 1st draft corrupt itself overnight, with no backup (luckily the draft was of a short, so was only around 15k). it took all day to fix, but I eventually got it back again.

My corrupt file opened in notepad in windows at least. But it had double spaces between every letter (not word, letter!) which I needed to manually take out, using a complex sequence of find/replace commands on chunks of half a page or so, any more crashed the file. And every piece of punctuation was changed, or not included. Most annoying was the speech marks changed to straight marks (smart quotes??) rather than curled ones which I prefer, and they wouldn't change with find/replace

As I said, it took me most of a day to get it back, but I learned a valuable lesson, and now save in at least two places, and at least two file different file types

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Most annoying was the speech marks changed to straight marks (smart quotes??) rather than curled ones which I prefer

Paste into a wordprocessor
highlight
Select Autoformat.
Straight Quotes will change to opening and closing types.

 

[J Riff]

BTW I had a USB die t'other day, it just snapped off where the plug joins the little circuit board. You can open it up and, using tiny wires, reconnect it for long enough to get the goods back. Better have a tiny soldering iron handy though.
Actually, remote HDs are the way to go now, I reckon, not neccesarily for backing up wips, which are usually small files, but, I do have a bunch of laptop HDs around and they are connectable via USB if you can find the little kit. That gives you a spare HD, much more durable than a USB. However, it seems that name companies don't make these kit things, they come from China or somewhere. Only 25 bux though, and one kit should allow for connecting multiple HDs. I have a few which add up to over a terrabyte, so that should take care of backing up movies, music, pics and the lot. Its the 25$ that's holding me back.

 

[Wanderlog]

I had a USB die t'other day, it just snapped off where the plug joins the little circuit board

There are USB drives whose casing is made of metal. There are no parts in them that can be broken by an average man.

 

[tinkerdan]

ha!
I've had more usb thumb drives die on me than hard drives so I usually have to keep stuff on a hard drive to back up my usb drives.
Most times the drive starts degrading and losing data until you realize that its progressively failing.

On the other hand recently my usb backup hard drives are trying to catch up in the failure category. I have backups wherever I can squeeze them in to a media.

On another note having had to rewrite whole patches of narrative has made me realize that I can actually do that as well as searching for the latest backup.