I have a trusty Mac laptop that is now not so trusty (G4 Powerbook 12", 6-7 yr old, with 2 yr old hard drive). Two nights ago I saved my document at about 6000 words and decided that once it was saved I would take my first backup to a USB thumb drive. As I saved, the editor froze. Spinning wait cursor. Unable to switch to other apps. Dock becomes inoperable. Unable to force quit any apps or use Finder at all now. And an extremely ugly noise is coming from the hard drive: the same noise that made me replace the old drive. On reboot: question mark folder, same ugly noise. Same on numerous reboots. Ubuntu PowerPC LiveCD boots OK unable to mount drive, lots of egregious I/O errors. I have hope for recovering my 6000 words, and I'm including them in my word count for now, but I'm resetting my goal at 50,000 new words, apart from the 6000 that are in data limbo, to be on the safe side.
Ask yourself "would I be extremely pissed off if I lost all of my work since my last backup?" The answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question "Should I back up now?" Got it?
Also, if anyone has advice, yes, I could use all the help I can get. Right now the plan is to try the OS X boot CD (not optimistic), keep trying to boot, and eventually to plug the drive into someone else's box, because I actually suspect a hardware problem involving not the drive itself. Kind of a hunch.
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36,056 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 21 00
You tried what i would have; a live Linux boot and try to mount the disk. I don't have specific advice because I'm not a Mac guy, but I know there are disk doctor type programs that can sometimes retreive what the OS percieves as partial data. Which might mean you'd get some or all of your words back.
If you have any hope of doing some sort of disk recovery, you might not want to keep trying the reboots. I think it's possible that the drive is getting worse every time it tries.
Best of luck, with both the disk and the manuscript.
Dale
53,483 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 07 23
I use Scrivener on my Mac, and follow them on Twitter. They had a tip today to use "Dropbox (www.getdropbox.com) with Scriv's File - Backup Project To (as zip) to backup and share Scriv files. I'm going to check this out when I get home from work tonight and see if it looks to me like a viable additional backup plan. I currently have 3 copies - 1 on my Mac, 1 on a thumbdrive, and 1 on an external hard drive. I'm paranoid when it comes to storing stuff online though, so it would depend on if Dropbox uses encryption or not if I go with it.
Good luck on the restore!
Jen
----------Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul. – M.K. Simmons
http://www.jenniferksights.com
40,604 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 09 46
For those of use using OpenOffice or NeoOffice, there is an extension that you can install that allows you to upload/download files to/from Google Docs. That's an easy way to make a backup! http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/ooo2gd
I've got my story stored offline on a flash drive. Guess I better back it up again...
----------~j
Municipal Liaison for St. Louis, MO
Previous NaNovels: King Arthur, angels, dragons, the Forest Lord, and prostitutes. Apparently this year it's folks rising from the dead.
aspirations: http://etoiline.com
82,070 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 12 05
It's probably genentic for me, I'm half Old Yankee New Englander. I always bring an extra hat. I leave three different numbers for the pet sitter.
After my computer with the only evidence of my first two books got stolen, I back up on a nearly OCD level of frequency. I have multiple flash drives, and have two different sites I email my work to.
So. Please do not become old and embittered like me. Back up. Send to off site. Nano aside, you never know when the tornado sirens might go off, or the flood waters might be coming up through your drain pipe.
I hope it's never, but both things have happened in my little bungalow.
-mm
----------"Not a Rose but a Thistle" -- 2005 (Win)
"Welcome To Lamentation!" -- 2006 (Win)
"A Saint Nobody's Heard Of " -- 2007 (Win)
"Nympho-izing Love Goo!" (working title) -- 2008 (Win)
"Like Getting Honey From a Stone" -- 2009
46,284 / 50,000
Nov 10, 2009 - 12 17
There's two kinds of people: those who back up to an obsessive level using multiple media and sites, and those who have never lost anything irreplaceable.
We had a desktop machine throw a hard drive and lost a lot of MP3s, I pulled all the photos and personal files off before the drive finally expired. It was nice enough to make one of those "your hard drive is going to die very very soon" noises in time for me to burn a CD.
Now, my novel lives on my MacBook and my thumb drive, with a copy stored on my external terabyte Time Machine drive. There's a copy of my NaNoWriMo statistics spreadsheet on Google Docs, and on the thumb drive, and the Mac.
Mac users, embrace Time Machine. I have snapshots of my hard drive going back to November 2007, even though I've been through a laptop upgrade since then. Time Machine saved Paul's behind when he rendered his Mac laptop unbootable within 48 hours of taking it out of the box. I cannot say enough good things about it!
----------http://www.quantumtea.com/blog/
28,000 / 50,000
Nov 15, 2009 - 14 24
The laptop started working again, and I snatched my precious words off of it. All is well. I'm still behind in the word count, but feeling better.