Of Lost Files and Sheer Panic by Konnie Enos

On Wednesday, June 1^st as my blog post was going up Bonnie told me she did not have a copy of the picture. Okay, no problem. I had that saved, with all my other writing-related stuff, on one of my jump drives. Easy fix.

Then I ran into a HUGE problem.

I could not open that jump drive. AT ALL.

Panic set in.

That was the only place I’d saved any of my writing. Well unless you count that my computer automatically backed it up somewhere every time I plugged in any of my jump drives.

So okay, automatic backups. Where?

My first thought was my one drive.

It was not.

Not being able to find it on my computer I called my tech expert, better known as Royce, to help me. He always fixes my problems eventually.

He searched. After several minutes of fruitless effort, he found copies of my folders. You know the ones I’d made to save all my writing within. Wonderful!

I started clicking through them.

Every folder was empty. No documents. Not even old ones.

Royce said he’d try and advised me to let him save all my jump drives to his one drive. He did this. Well, for my other three jump drives. He still could not access the one with all my writing.

Being unable to find anything but empty files, I was understandably upset. I could find no other copies of my documents. Now it’s true that I’ve given copies of some of them to Bonnie and even Melinda, but I knew for a fact I had not given the most recent versions of my fantasy or my sci-fi to them because I’d worked on both since the last time that I shared either with anyone. And I had some stories that I’ve never shared, at all.

My only hope was to find someone who could access my jump drive and save the files on it. But that would take both time and money. I have no money to spare and am way too booked with schoolwork to take time off to find what I need. So, it’s waiting until I have more money and time.

All things considered; we’re talking months in the future. Even now, I have no idea when I’ll be able to afford to pay someone to try to access or fix my jump drive. I don’t even have time to get Bonnie and Melinda to find what copies they have.

I’m resigned to waiting until I finish school. Fortunately, this semester ends July 20^th, and it’s my last one. I’ll need to find work, but I should be able to dedicate some time to trying to retrieve what files I can.

I had no choice but to focus on due dates for both homework assignments and bills. So, mourning the loss of every file I had on all my writing, I tried to concentrate on, well more pressing things. Certainly not more important because as a writer your WIP files are the most important thing.

But in the back of my mind was still that niggling thought that my computer had been automatically updating a backup file on all my jump drives every time I used them. So there had to be a backup somewhere.

So, Monday, having a blessed reprieve from stressful levels of homework, I decided to dedicate some time to see if I could find those missing backup files. I knew they weren’t in one drive, so I investigated my Google Drive.

My opening page showed nothing promising. Clicking on “My Computer” and “Shared with Me” wasn’t helpful either. Clicking on recent brought up a page showing just my most recent activity, but it had a scroll bar.

I started scrolling down. And down. And down some more.

I’m seeing files that would have been on all my jump drives, except the one with my writing on it. But I’m seeing jump drive files, so I keep scrolling.

Believe it or not, I hit the jackpot!

I found exactly one file from my writing jump drive. And miracle of miracles there were followable links that lead me to all my files! Well, most of them. I could not find my post from two weeks ago or another paper I’d been working on.

Since the post was up, I still had a copy of it, so not lost. As for the other paper, I was sure I’d saved it somewhere and under a specific name. Since it wasn’t among my writing, I decided to look on my jump drive where I’d stored a variety of files. And I found that too!

Nothing like finding things you thought you’d lost. Oh, and back up your backups!

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.