Commiserations on a disaster please

[Patrisia]

I have just done the unbelievable - wiped out an entire Carrington folder by over writing, while not paying attention, and not just deleted it - duh!
It is not as bad as it could be, a lot of it is still recorded in a FH programme but things like Carrington contact emails, census images carefully obtained and paid for from you-know-where, lots of odds and ends, all gone!
I can't find a crying smiley, so just imagine it!

[Geoffers]

I have just done the unbelievable - wiped out an entire Carrington folder by over writing, while not paying attention, and not just deleted it - duh!

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

emails, census images carefully obtained and paid for from you-know-where, lots of odds and ends, all gone!

Oh Patrisia, Do you not even have print outs of the census returns? - back up copies???? All that work. Oh well, as someone once told me, if you learn by it, it's an experience, if you don't then you've made a mistake.

A passing thought as a way of storing the information you've got left is to e-mail it to yourself, either to your main account, or a new e-mail address and ferreting it away as a back-up until you can get some means of permanently backing up the data.

Time to have a stiff drink in sympathy

Saddened of Charlbury

[IreneH]

Bugger!

[peter nicholl]

Oh Patrisia, how awful, the stuff nightmares are made of. I can only imagine I echo Geoffer's thoughts and double on Irene's.

Yours in Sympathy
Peter

[Chasing Caseys]

My commiserations also

The day my internet provider decided to change the way it looked three years of valuable emails and contacts were lost forever (strange how it was just the one email folder ). I used to print everything out at first but accumalated so much paper work and being the sort of person that hates any kind of cutter i threw them away (to the recycle bin i may add ) I didnt know about backing up, still dont, but now everytime i recieve or download anything it goes straight on to disc. Have you passed any of this info on to family so they can copy anything for you ?. I retrieved some through my - luckily - boringly letting everyone know what i had found. I was really mad at first but soon calmed down as there really isnt much that can be done. Its a shame "you know who" dont have a previously viewed or downloaded image section like scotlandspeople that way its easy to find old census and bmds you have downloaded and put in your timeline.

Very sorry to hear this, i know exactly how you feel.

[Mythology]

Oh 'eck!

I wondered what you were cheesed off about in your last e-mail - now I know.

I don't know *all* your Carrington stuff, of course, but from the bits that I've been involved in, I know there's a lot of it - I'm so sorry to hear that a significant chunk has gone AWOL.

As an *immediate* solution, I can only do the same as Geoffers and suggest a whole bottle of Sloe Gin followed by a dozen large Rum & Shrubs.
(Please note - I do not accept any responsibility for your PC being washed up on the Irish coast tomorrow morning as a result of following this advice)

What suits one person won't alway suit another, but, for the future, a couple of other backing up ideas:
If you have two drives in your PC, use the second one to back up FH stuff - I do this at least once a day, so if the stuff I'm working on goes up the creek, at worst I 've only lost a day's work.
If you have a CD writer, and buy cheap CDs in bulk at about 10p a time, burning the whole lot to CD once in a while isn't expensive.
I know you can't use password protection in your webspace with your ISP, but if you still have plenty of space left [edit - and you're not worried about someone else stumbling across it], that's another possibility - just upload the lot now and then for safe keeping.

Whatever, I hope that getting back what you obviously can (e.g. the census images) from this mishap doesn't prove too difficult.

[Patrisia]

Oh Patrisia, Do you not even have print outs of the census returns? - back up copies???? All that work. Oh well, as someone once told me, if you learn by it, it's an experience, if you don't then you've made a mistake.
Time to have a stiff drink in sympathy
Saddened of Charlbury

Thanks Geoffers, I had a very stiff drink before I posted, and then got maudlin.
You have reminded me that I did do a back up CD, though not as recently as I should have, so I may be able to salvage some of it.

The problem with print out copies is that my filing system, and my room, is so overloaded, that there is not even enough room for me, let alone the dog. She is very worried that her basket may be taken over for spill-over storage!

I have definitely learnt from this mistake!

[Clive Blackaby]

Hi Patrisia,

I certainly commiserate - so embarrassing when you do things like that isn't it. About 15 years ago I did something similar at work: only I typed the equivalent of "delete *.*" The thing only stopped when it tried to delete the program that does the deletion . Fortunately we had a backup.

I don't want to give you false hope, but often although the computer says that your files are permanently deleted they are still there, but they've gone from the index tables that allow the operating system to find them. It also makes the space available so they eventually disappear altogether by being overwritten.

There is technolology out there that, for example, fraud investigators use to recover supposedly deleted data. I don't know how they do it, but it may be worth a try. Don't do anything like reorganising or defragmenting your disks until you've given it a try. I know that at one time Norton Utilities had a file recovery facility, but not used it for a good many years, so it may not be available now. Try asking a small local computer shop.

Don't despair YET

[Patrisia]

[QUOTE=Mythology]Oh 'eck! !!

I wondered what you were cheesed off about in your last e-mail - now I know.

As an *immediate* solution, I can only do the same as Geoffers and suggest a whole bottle of Sloe Gin followed by a dozen large Rum & Shrubs.
(Please note - I do not accept any responsibility for your PC being washed up on the Irish coast tomorrow morning as a result of following this advice)

If you have a CD writer, and buy cheap CDs in bulk at about 10p a time, burning the whole lot to CD once in a while isn't expensive.
I know you can't use password protection in your webspace with your ISP, but if you still have plenty of space left, that's another possibility - just upload the lot now and then for safe keeping.
QUOTE]
Thanks for the advice Myth, yes it is the CD I am going to try - when the fumes have cleared!
But you know what it's like; something comes up and you think 'that rings a bell', so you trawl through all the flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated, for that odd bit of something that you filed away in the year dot, for a rainy day.

Speaking of flotsam and jetsam, the tide is out, so the Irish coast is safe from my wrath!

[Chasing Caseys]

Thats a point as Clive sort of mentions......would system restore bring back Patricias files as i know it has for me in the past without me losing anything recently added?