I Lost EVERY DOCUMENT!!

[JohnASE]

To Elizabeth: I tried what you suggested but I didn't and I still don't know how to do that and/or as simple as your suggestion was, it was above my abilities. You know, with me and computers, I'm like a calf that's staring at a very strange gate.

I'm no expert, but Elizabeth's suggestion is the first thing that occurred to me. It shouldn't be too hard for someone to walk you through the procedure on the phone. I'd offer to do it, but I'd bet you have Windows, and I'm not that familiar with Windows. Maybe your computer person would be wiling to help you to determine whether you really need to take it in.

On a related topic, having a full hard drive is not good. Your computer would be much happier with some free space. If you're not ready to upgrade your computer and can't delete much, you need some kind of additional, external storage. External hard drives are pretty cheap these days. I didn't realize how cheap until I followed Adamo's links! Alternatively, if you can get by with less storage, you might be able to make do with a flash drive.

My computer dumbness is about to ask...how do I back up and into what, etc?

There are actually a lot of back up options. Things to consider are how much info do you want to back up, what's your budget, and how computer savvy are you? Do you want to back up everything or just a few of your more important files?

My mother-in-law has a few, small, crucial files she needs to back up. She doesn't care about the rest. My wife set her up with a flash drive and showed her how to copy files from her hard drive to the flash drive. It was simple and cheap. Great solution for DOC files, but not as good for large photos or video.

At work, I periodically back up to an external hard drive that I only run while backing up. I just copy over all the files I want to save. It's not very elegant and takes a long time, but it's easy. There's software available that can keep track of things and only back up files that have changed since your last back up to be more efficitent. Oh, and it can compress the data for you too, enabling you to back up more data to a smaller space. This can be important if you're backing up a lot of info.

You can also back up to CDs or DVDs if you have a burner. I don't remember why I didn't like this option. I think it had to do with problems adding more info after burning, even with re-writable media. This might be good for files that don't change, like photos, video, or music.

These are just a few, quick thoughts from a non-pro.

Good luck retrieving your data!

[Patrick]

Hey Bob,

Sorry that you are having this trouble.

The best thing you can do to ensure the speediest, safest result is to take it to a computer tech if you have someone you know. They can help get you sorted and back on the right track and can help you set up a backup system, as well. Your documents may not be lost - it could be any number of things.

Having a backup system that regularly and automatically backs up your files is always a good idea, but the moment after you might have lost documents is not the greatest time in the world to be hearing that stuff. Do what you can, get back on track and then you can set up something to take care of that. When that time comes, you may want to take a look at something like http://www.carbonite.com, which I am looking at myself.

Best of luck!

Thanks,

Patrick

[MasterPain]

The first thing I would do upon getting documents back would be to print copies of the important ones. I know paper is out of fashion in this century, but it is immune to computer crashes.

[sensei8]

The first thing I would do upon getting documents back would be to print copies of the important ones. I know paper is out of fashion in this century, but it is immune to computer crashes.

That's a great idea; I thank you for that. I've WAY to many important documents and the like on my computer.

Good thing, all of my martial art platitudes are in a safe deposit box...whew!!

[sensei8]

To each and everyone of you that have tried to help me with my very mean and deliberate computer...I say this out loudly....

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!!

I always thought that the computer backed up whatever ALL BY ITSELF, dumb of me in the first place considering I'm dumber than a stick when it comes to computers...DOH!!

Btw, I'm taking my computer to my computer girl ASAP...like right now!!

[Patrick]

Let us know how it goes.

Patrick