I'm Really Wanting To Give Up Now

[teddy_radiator]

I just saved my first chapter of my exchange fic. Closed it. Tried to reopen it. The file is corrupted. I've lost it.

Someone is mad at me.

Comments

[kribu.livejournal.com]

Can you try and open the file in Notepad (or something similar)? Even if the file is corrupted, it's possible that the contents (or most of them) are salvageable.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

I've tried both Notepad and wordpad. One comes up blank the other is just gibberish. It gives this baffling reason for the corruption in the details. I'm very not a happy camper right now. This is the third file I've had corrupted since I got this new 'puter.

[kribu.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's unfortunate. Usually there's a bit of actual text in between all the gibberish. :-/

If it's a recurring problem, have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling Word (or whatever you are using)? Not that this will help with this particular file.

I second tonksinger's suggestion, though - it's worth a try, anyway. Sometimes a file that doesn't work in one computer will miraculously open in another, although it's a long shot.

*hugs*

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you and Tonks. I'll send it to my beta to see if she has any joy. I use an external hard drive, and it worked great with my old laptop, but it doesn't like this new one at ALL. I think that is the trouble - it got corrupted going from the laptop to the external hd. I'll give anything a go at this point!

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I use an external hard drive, and it worked great with my old laptop, but it doesn't like this new one at ALL. I think that is the trouble - it got corrupted going from the laptop to the external hd.

If that external HD was plugged into your old computer when it got fried, the HD might have gotten corrupted at the same time, especially if something was being backed up onto it, or read from it, at the time. You might want to try reinstalling the HD's driver software to see if that solves the problem.

I'd also save work to your new computer's HD for short term storage, and use the external drive for backup purposes only; the usual procedure is to just do incremental backups daily (presuming you are doing enough work on a daily basis to back up), and a full backup once a week.

IOW, you should have TWO copies of your file, one on your computer, and one on the external HD which may not be the most current, but gives you a (hopefully) recoverable copy with the next-to-last most recent changes, in case something happens to the copy on your computer.

[tonksinger.livejournal.com]

Eeeeep. Maybe email it to someone else and see if they can open it? *crosses fingers* *hugs*

[justpinkpastel.livejournal.com]

Oh no! That's no good at all! I'm sorry darling. If you want, you can try emailing me the file and I will see if I can open it up or if the hubby has any ideas.

[darklotus1211.livejournal.com]

If you can send me the explanation of why it was corrupted, I'll see if I can help - no promises, but it may be something fixable.

I know it won't help with this chapter, but perhaps you should consider some form of online storage? It can be something as simple as setting up an email account just for that, and sending it as an attachment to it (my son does this with his school assignments, as he can access them at school, even with the restrictions the school puts on net access) or divshare, cloud drive... there's a lot of them out there, and for the space you'd need, they'll be free. That way, even if you lose your hardware, you have the data available, through internet access at your library, or through someone else's computer.

You can even post them on LJ as private entries - so only you can see them. The way LJ can muck up at times, though, that could be trouble if you relied only on that.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

It Says "The name in the end tag of the element must match the element type in the start tag"

Location: Part: /word/document.xml, Line: 2, Column 65101

Thanks for offering.

I do have dropbox, but I had literally just finished and saved it this morning, I closed it, opened it, closed it again and it wouldn't open.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thanks, babe, but I'm afraid it's a goner... and it was saved on my external hard drive, the one I thought was safe. I'm just going to start saving everything in about 10 places at once and a hard copy. I can't go through this many times without thinking someone's trying to tell me something!

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Wow, it sounds like you've had a day of it - and if those dogs don't want to go, they don't!

I am looking forward to my Sleepy Severus... he will be my talisman... I'm going to send you another goodie via email soon - it won't be as huge as the last one, I promise...

[reg-flint.livejournal.com]

Have you tried opening it with ,odt files (using Open Office?) I once saved a .doc this way. If it's .docx I can't do much.

Best of luck,

[beffeysue.livejournal.com]

That really sucks! I have several thumb drives that I do quick backups on.

I hope someone you sent the file to can open it.

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sorry, Teddy. I had something similar happen to a draft of my ownficfest story, and I just sat down and cried. So frustrating. I hope someone more computer-literate than I can help.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Yep, that was me today. I mean, it wasn't Tolstoy, but it was about 5K words that I'm going to have to try and remember. I'm so disheartened tonight I've tried to move on to chapter 2 to get something started, but it isn't exactly soaring.

[irishredlass.livejournal.com]

Since it seems your computers are possessed maybe you should start sending copies to one of your beta team to preserve.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Ironically enough, that's what I was doing when I discovered the file was corrupted! I'll write it again - tomorrow. I just don't have the heart to try to recreate it today.

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

Alas, I can't offer any suggestions beyond what others have done. Just know that I am keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that you find a way to retrieve it!

[dharkapparition.livejournal.com]

Hugs
Totally feel your pain. I've lost nearly an entire flash drive to corrupted files. More than once.