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| Never forget the backup! |
It looks like my computer is dying (I'm writing this from my netbook). The Windows won't start, and I have no access to my stuff there. Maybe I'll be able to save my data, maybe not; Significant Other will look into it.
And, you guessed it, I was an idiot enough not to do the backup.
Now, don't get me wrong: whatever was related to paying work (translation, editing and so on) is safe -- already sent where it should be, mostly payed for, and while I was doing that particular work, I was always careful to save it in more than one place. When it comes to work I get money for, I'm extremely careful.
But. My stories, the photos I took, some other stuff -- I made no backup of that.
It turned out I was pretty lucky: some other stuff I can get again, most of the stories were either already sent to my publisher as a short story collection (it also means I have them in the attachment of my sent mail) and some of them were published on my blog, so, if I can't retrieve my data, I'll lose one or two very short stories and some photos. Some of those photos were really nice, but it won't break my heart if I have to lose them; as for the stories, I might be able to write them again -- they wouldn't be exactly the same, but it's not the end of the world.
Still. I should have been more careful. I knew my computer was ancient and it was matter of time before something like this happened, and even if it wasn't, I should have saved important work -- and my writing is important, right? Right.
On top of all that, the flu refuses to leave either me or Significant Other (by the way, my computer decided to crash on his birthday), I can barely breathe, and this time flu managed to make my gums bleed. Ouch.
Rant over.
So, has it ever happened to you to forget the backup of the important (or not so important) stuff?
7 comments:
I tend to email myself important documents so they are in multiple places. I do back things up on flash drives and external hard drives too. I'm very paranoid.
I'm paranoid too about the stuff I'm expected to deliver to someone, but when it comes to the stories I hope to sell someday to someone... For some stupid reason, I act as if it's not important enough to back them up.
I do back up periodically, prolly not enough. I'm thinking I should get one of those auto-backup online systems, and do it once a week overnight or something.
When I was querying and had an MS request, I did a major rewrite - and then - the document somehow got corrupted. I had an old backup, and print-out of the changes for 2/3, but the rest - all gone! Had to start a new file and try to revise from memory.
Something similar happened to me about 2 months ago, I was fresh into my new column (and only the second I ever had) and was on a roll with my second article when the computer just reset itself. The file was corrupted in the process and I lost an entire day of work. I almost cried. Instead I screamed and threw things around. In public.
So the German installed Spider Oak for me to back up all the important things, and now I work from dropbox.Every article is saved in a dropbox file on my computer so it goes straight to online backup as well.
Online backup wouldn't work for me because I'm not online all the time, but I'm thinking about an external hard drive with the automated backup option.
Beverly and Sherrie, thanks for dropping by!
That is rough. I do have an external hard drive backup system, which helps with my peace of mind.
Hard to think when your head is in so much pain, though. Hope you feel better soon.
I hope so too. Thanks for the kind words!
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