Long lost files return from the abyss. Gyppo does happy dance.

[Gyppo]

   My missing files are back.

   File recovery:  Have you ever lost a file or several - and been totally unable to find them again?  Even when you're usually very good at back-ups it can still happen.

   A couple of years ago I lost the first drafts of several scenes from a novel which was bubbling away in my mind whilst I was working on another project.  I wasn't sure where it was going, but the characters needed capturing in print, so they could mature and develop in my subconscious.  I dashed them off into a series of spare documents between the more urgent work.  Then they vanished.

   I reluctantly accepted they were truly lost, possibly on a drive which had died.  But I still ran sporadic searches for them in odd moments.   

   Today I am a happy man.  The grizzled old Polar Bear is capering around doing a happy dance.  Truly.  An awe inspiring or possibly terrifying sight.

   I used the Windows 'find' function, (Windows key + f), which not only looks for file names but will also search for a single word or phrase within the text of the nearly one million files spread across several drives.  (If it asks you to 'turn on indexing' then do it.)

   I could recall names and phrases in the missing files so I searched on snippets of conversation, etc.  One such phrase was 'differential sharpening', not a phrase you use every day so I wasn't likely to be hit with screen after screen of results.

   It's a slow process, but you can leave it running in the background.  Or overnight once you start head-butting the keyboard ;-)  It was great to turn the screen back on this morning and find positive results.

   I'm now copying them across onto a thumb drive so they are no longer the only copies.

   Remember Win + f.  Put a remembered phrase into the search box then minimise the window and do something else until the results are in.

   [Shamelessly capering around to Springsteen's Dancing In The Dark.]

        Gyppo

[Laura H]

That's fantastic, Gyppo! So glad you retrieved those files. When you're finished dancing, go hang out with those characters. They probably wondered why they were in exile for so long. 

[Gyppo]

I have been.  A joyous and time consuming reunion indeed.

Much more fun than unbunging the filter in the shower drain, which I told myself I was going to do today.  It's slow to drain and has regurgitated a wodge of short brown hair, (Yuk), which is definitely not mine.  Doubtless a gift from the previous tenant or her son who lived with her for a while.

I'm a bit miffed that the Housing Association didn't clean it out between tenants.  Lazy sods.

Rubber glove day tomorrow now ;-)

[Spell Chick]

That was a long time to be stuck at The Station. Glad you finally got them some work.

[Gyppo]

They weren't even in The Station, just a missing folder, buried behind several other sub-folders where they shouldn't have been anyway.  I can only presume that at some point, probably half asleep, I saved them in the wrong place.

[MJTennant]

Great news!

I love it when this happens!  I recently had a clear out in my garage and found an ancient USB stick where I'd saved a copy of a couple of children's books I'd attempted to write years ago.  'The Adventures of the Fifty Pence Piece' and 'The Travels of Woolly the Pom Pom Hat'!  I had a fit of the giggles as I touched base with a few of the characters in the latter book.  The French Beret Twins, Rupert the Top Hat, Lady Snoot the Wedding Hat and Scrud the Beanie LOL.  Each hat sat in the window of a hat shop in Petticoat Lane in London and their goal in life was to fulfil their hat destiny (that being to adorn a human head).  Woolly was the one hat all the other posh or tougher hats picked on as he was blue with a bright orange pom pom and spoke with a thick Yorkshire accent!

I must say the writing is so atrocious, I found both books highly entertaining.  I remember my mum did the illustrations for me and everything.  I never did anything with them.  They were just for me and now I've found them again.

Enjoy your find Gyppo!  I am doing a jig for you.

M J x

[fire-fly]

Well what a surprise, buy a lotto ticket now and come visit but unclog that shower first

[Cathy C]

Nice tip, Gyppo. Thanks for sharing.

Glad you recovered your lost files.

[DGSquared]

Can't believe I missed this...actually, not all that surprising, given the blonde, the fire, the move, the loss of a laptop, and yet, here we are.


I'm so happy for you, Gyppo. I still mourn a few long lost things that might have actually helped me. Oh well, one door closes, and . . .


Children's books, just in time for little Alma. I call that, serendipitous. 

[Gyppo]

As computers get faster we get used to everything being instant.  It's become almost counter-intuitive to set something up to search overnight, slowly and laboriously.  But that's one of the jobs computers are good it.

But it was someone else who found the collection of kid's stories.

But it's amazing what the 'find' function tracks down when given just a distinctive key phrase.

Gyppo

[DGSquared]

After reading this post, I went back to the. 'FIND' function in WORD which claimed I had several 'UNSAVED' files.




Yes, "UNSAVED".


So I clicked the link, of, 'UNSAVED' files, hoping against hope to find a rather important thing I wrote, but failed to save the night before, only to find the, 'UNSAVED' files, had not been saved.


Really?


Ha! Who would'a thunk? 


Finding, 'SAVED' files, on the other hand, is certainly a relief because they were, at some point saved and presumably, forgotten and/or lost.


I liken it to finding a hidden treasure or a post bank, buried deep in the ground.


Congratulations!