Need A Computer Geek's Help, Please Help

[scarygirl]

I am so upset.... All of my writing IS GONE!!! I think someone went onto my computer and either deleted or stole a folder of short stories i HAD worked on. All of it gone.... I can recover some of it on another hard drive, but more recent stuff.,, IS GONE! This short story that I recently started nad stopped due to writers's block is gone!!!!!!! I didn't delete it from my hard drive! I swear I didn't....

It was so good....

Two nights ago I was on IM, and someone THAT i thought was a friend, under my friend's handle, taht I hadn't spoken in a million years IM'd me. I started talking to them, and said , is that you x? And they were silent..... Then they were off. Is it ;possible they gained access to my computer and stole my work? I feel so violated/ This has been a really shitty year for me and for me to lose my writing, the thing that matters to me most... This caps everything... To lose this is too much. Can it be recovered? Are those riles really gone????????

[StoneCold]

I'm guessing your using windows. First step, don't delete your trash folder until you check in it. If its there right click, undelete.

If you didn't delete it, its probably just misfiled. Possibilities:

1. You accidently moved it to another folder.

2. Your word processing program lost the quick links where you normally open from but the files are probably in the document folder.

It is possible you've been hacked but how would they know to go after those stories and why would they delete them? Hackers are usually after cc info.

Check in My Documents. Also check the folders near where you file these if you do it manually.

Good luck.

[scarygirl]

Okay. I feel like a BIG IDIOT!! i looked in another place and sure enough, I placed the file elsewhere.

I added two and two of 0 and got 10 because of anxiety and stress. Anyway, thanks for straightening me out. I panicked because when I clicked on on one of my normal word links it came up blank. At any rate this a reminder to back up my work anyway always always.

[quote="StoneCold"]I'm guessing your using windows. First step, don't delete your trash folder until you check in it. If its there right click, undelete.

If you didn't delete it, its probably just misfiled. Possibilities:

1. You accidently moved it to another folder.

2. Your word processing program lost the quick links where you normally open from but the files are probably in the document folder.

It is possible you've been hacked but how would they know to go after those stories and why would they delete them? Hackers are usually after cc info.

Check in My Documents. Also check the folders near where you file these if you do it manually.

Good luck.[/quote]

[Monker]

Just curious...what type of writing do you do? What genre, etc. Are you published?

[scarygirl]

Just curious...what type of writing do you do? What genre, etc. Are you published?

Fiction, short fiction mostly. Never been published.. I wrote a lot in high school and college, but it kind of fell by the wayside. Over the last couple years I have written here and there. This is a sample email blast I wrote for a job I was going after. I don't think they liked it because I never heard back

Subject: Mom said our RV smelled like a litter box

Moms and Dads have two loves, me and that darn old smelly old RV!

One day she and dads decided to take the entire family on a big adventure, all ten of us! Well except for me, I had to stay home!

So here they were on day three of their road trip to California when they suddenly noticed that the RV didn’t smell so good.

At first they blamed Uncle Elliot. Uncle Elliot who normally smells like a combination of sauerkraut and blacked eye peas! The airs effects of which are so toxic that if you get within ten feet of him you will spontaneously combust. I lost a sister that way!

But no, as luck would have it Aunt Helene had given him the tomato soup treatment just prior to the trip. This smell was much stronger, almost like …

“Where’s that cat?” Uncle Elliot shouted?

And like that Uncle Elliot was on the rampage; tearing the RV apart limb from limb till finally he stopped in a dead stagger, eager to take a bathroom breather!

“Aha! The BATHROOM!”

A week long road trip, ten family members and ten thousand flushes! You do the stinky smelly math!

This wasn’t a job for Glade! This was a job for …….

X !

X RV and Marine sanitation products!

They will make your RV smell, well, less like me!

Visit their website to learn more!

[Memorex]

Just to post one comment about this in case it ever really does happen to someone (accidentally deleting files). First step is to write nothing further to the drive on which the original files are missing. For example, if the files were stored on the C:\ drive, then do not write anything else on that drive until the files are recovered.

Generally, computers do not delete files until space is needed. They simply mark them for deletion and hide them. There are many tools out there that can be downloaded to a thumb drive or other drive that will undelete the missing files. This has saved my ass on a number of occasions. But if you write on the disk beforehand, there is danger in the files being overwritten.

[scarygirl]

Good advice. Thank you!

On a different note, those that here that believe in the power of prayer and even those that don't, please say a prayer for me. I am currently working part-time and need a full-time job to come through within the next week to two weeks.

I hope all of you are doing well.

Just to post one comment about this in case it ever really does happen to someone (accidentally deleting files). First step is to write nothing further to the drive on which the original files are missing. For example, if the files were stored on the C:\ drive, then do not write anything else on that drive until the files are recovered.

Generally, computers do not delete files until space is needed. They simply mark them for deletion and hide them. There are many tools out there that can be downloaded to a thumb drive or other drive that will undelete the missing files. This has saved my ass on a number of occasions. But if you write on the disk beforehand, there is danger in the files being overwritten.

[Monker]

Well, that's an "interesting" story, LOL. Very sarcastic.

I guess what I was going to suggest is if you have some stories that you think are particularly good and want to share, put them together and self publish them and sell them on Amazon. It's 'free', if you can edit and format your own work. All you need is around 150 pages or so. Charge $15 dollars for it, or $1.99 for a Kindle version...you may make a bit of money...If you are lucky, you can submit it to Amazon and get them to publish it as a Kindle single.

...and you can say you are 'published'.

Also, a person would be smart to do auto-backups of their important files, to a second drive, a network drive (plugged into your router/modem, or USB drive, or even save to a free Cloud somewhere. There is really no need to risk a hard drive going corrupt nowadays...storage is cheap, and free on a cloud.

[Rick]

SG, was alcohol involved in any of this? Because if it was, I can relate.

[scarygirl]

No. Just Anxiety! Come to think of it, I do need a drink. Of course I would just anxious about that as well.

SG, was alcohol involved in any of this? Because if it was, I can relate.

[tater1977]

SG, was alcohol involved in any of this? Because if it was, I can relate.

Ummnm Rick ..are you saying you 'relate' after alcohol ?

[Rick]

Just to post one comment about this in case it ever really does happen to someone (accidentally deleting files). First step is to write nothing further to the drive on which the original files are missing. For example, if the files were stored on the C:\ drive, then do not write anything else on that drive until the files are recovered.

Generally, computers do not delete files until space is needed. They simply mark them for deletion and hide them. There are many tools out there that can be downloaded to a thumb drive or other drive that will undelete the missing files. This has saved my ass on a number of occasions. But if you write on the disk beforehand, there is danger in the files being overwritten.

This!!!!!^^^^^^^

I would have jumped on this last night, but I was too schnockered.

Memorex is absolutely right about being able to recover deleted files. And the thumb drive idea is genius. That prevents your computer from overwriting anything. IE: If you install recovery software on your hard drive, you could very well be overwriting a file or files you want recovered.

Do some Googling on how to get the recovery software installed on a thumb drive. This is all very inexpensive. Possibly free, with the exception of the thumb drive. Thumb drives are memory sticks that go into a USB port, and most modern computers can be instructed to boot from a memory stick. Once you achieve that, the recovery software will guide you through it.

I have a more expensive/tedious problem. I had a 1TB hard drive go tits up on me. It has some precious pictures on it that I desperately want recovered. I've Googled and done everything from putting it in the freezer and any manner of physical shaking and abrupt rotations to try to get it to work again, and all have failed. Data recovery is very expensive in this situation, if you send it to a company that does that. The problem being, you can't open a hard drive unless it's in a "clean" environment. One speck of dust or a human hair landing on a hard drives platter is like your car running into a boulder. It's all very microscopic. But Googling has shown me that you can create your own little "clean room" in which to work within. For this, you buy an identical hard drive and swap the platters out in that little clean room. Might work and might not, depending on how steady my hands are and how clean my clean room is. Check this out. http://cleanroom.net/?p=622

I'm going to give that a whirl after we get moved.

[Rick]

SG, was alcohol involved in any of this? Because if it was, I can relate.

Ummnm Rick ..are you saying you 'relate' after alcohol ?

I've had relations after alcohol. Is that what you're asking?

[Angel]

Fiction, short fiction mostly. Never been published.. I wrote a lot in high school and college, but it kind of fell by the wayside. Over the last couple years I have written here and there. This is a sample email blast I wrote for a job I was going after. I don't think they liked it because I never heard back

Subject: Mom said our RV smelled like a litter box

Moms and Dads have two loves, me and that darn old smelly old RV!

One day she and dads decided to take the entire family on a big adventure, all ten of us! Well except for me, I had to stay home!

So here they were on day three of their road trip to California when they suddenly noticed that the RV didn’t smell so good.

At first they blamed Uncle Elliot. Uncle Elliot who normally smells like a combination of sauerkraut and blacked eye peas! The airs effects of which are so toxic that if you get within ten feet of him you will spontaneously combust. I lost a sister that way!

But no, as luck would have it Aunt Helene had given him the tomato soup treatment just prior to the trip. This smell was much stronger, almost like …

“Where’s that cat?” Uncle Elliot shouted?

And like that Uncle Elliot was on the rampage; tearing the RV apart limb from limb till finally he stopped in a dead stagger, eager to take a bathroom breather!

“Aha! The BATHROOM!”

A week long road trip, ten family members and ten thousand flushes! You do the stinky smelly math!

This wasn’t a job for Glade! This was a job for …….

X !

X RV and Marine sanitation products!

They will make your RV smell, well, less like me!

Visit their website to learn more!

I'm sorry, but.....um........WHAT THE HELL?????

[scarygirl]

Fiction, short fiction mostly. Never been published.. I wrote a lot in high school and college, but it kind of fell by the wayside. Over the last couple years I have written here and there. This is a sample email blast I wrote for a job I was going after. I don't think they liked it because I never heard back

Subject: Mom said our RV smelled like a litter box

Moms and Dads have two loves, me and that darn old smelly old RV!

One day she and dads decided to take the entire family on a big adventure, all ten of us! Well except for me, I had to stay home!

So here they were on day three of their road trip to California when they suddenly noticed that the RV didn’t smell so good.

At first they blamed Uncle Elliot. Uncle Elliot who normally smells like a combination of sauerkraut and blacked eye peas! The airs effects of which are so toxic that if you get within ten feet of him you will spontaneously combust. I lost a sister that way!

But no, as luck would have it Aunt Helene had given him the tomato soup treatment just prior to the trip. This smell was much stronger, almost like …

“Where’s that cat?” Uncle Elliot shouted?

And like that Uncle Elliot was on the rampage; tearing the RV apart limb from limb till finally he stopped in a dead stagger, eager to take a bathroom breather!

“Aha! The BATHROOM!”

A week long road trip, ten family members and ten thousand flushes! You do the stinky smelly math!

This wasn’t a job for Glade! This was a job for …….

X !

X RV and Marine sanitation products!

They will make your RV smell, well, less like me!

Visit their website to learn more!

I'm sorry, but.....um........WHAT THE HELL?????