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Laptop fail = work down the drain.


FatDave

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Ok, I know how silly I have been not backing up my work, but when my laptop died recently(Windows fails to load, giving me a blue screen and tachno-babble when I try), I lost about 20k words that I have since failed to reproduce to anything like the standard I lost.

The laptop is from PC World, and insured. I don't really know anything about the process, so does anybody know if there are any(preferably cheap) places that would be able to get my word document back, without voiding the insurance?

PC World do it, but at a cost of "from £99" and the "from" bit scares pessemists like me, and even £99 is a stretch so soon after Christmas.

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It depends what the problem actually is, but if the hard disk is ok you could take it out the laptop and put it in an external caddy (a few quid from dabs, ebuyer, ebay). You'd then be able to access the documents on it from another computer.

 

Not sure what you mean by 'insured'. Do you mean an extended warranty? Tech support? Accidental damage?

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There's really no need to post the same topic in multiple sections of the forum.

 

You don't think there's a need to aim a question at two completley different groups of people? Do you think my post would be seen by many techies if I just submitted it on a writers forum?

 

I posted a SIMILAR thread to this one on the general forum, just incase people who know about computers aren't also writers.

 

So the way I've done it might be a little underhand, but I dissagree that there is no need for it.

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Ok, I know how silly I have been not backing up my work, but when my laptop died recently(Windows fails to load, giving me a blue screen and tachno-babble when I try), I lost about 20k words that I have since failed to reproduce to anything like the standard I lost.

The laptop is from PC World, and insured. I don't really know anything about the process, so does anybody know if there are any(preferably cheap) places that would be able to get my word document back, without voiding the insurance?

PC World do it, but at a cost of "from £99" and the "from" bit scares pessemists like me, and even £99 is a stretch so soon after Christmas.

 

Hi FATDAVE

 

You may want to read the thread on here 'Disaster Recovery' - I don't know how close to Dinnington you are but there is a little shop on Laughton Road which will check your hard drive out for you for a nominal fee. Here's what happened to me......

 

My laptop died on me! I switched it on and nothing happened. It was perfectly fine the evening before and then it was dead. Of course all my writing, my OU work, my family history were all on the hard disk which was now inaccessible. I have my work in hard copy but it wasn't backed up anywhere else and all my other stuff wasn't backed up at all. My laptop has been my trusted companion for nearly 8 years so you can imagine how much stuff was on there.

 

I felt suicidal. I have just finished my first novel and there it was gone!

 

Fortunately for me, it was the motherboard that had died and not the hard disk and I have a geeky 20 year old for a son who was able to talk me through (over the internet and using a webcam) how to attach my laptop's hard drive to my daughter's pc and rescue all my work. I now have it backed up on a flash drive.

 

Now I am bereft. I have no money for a new laptop and only limited access to my daughter's pc. Like all teenagers she is addicted to facebook and practically lives her life online.

 

I had started a piece of writing for the August project but haven't been able to finish it. I will post the bit I managed to do before the disaster later.

 

What I am trying to say is for goodness sake make sure all your work is backed up somewhere - it cost me £8 for a 16Gb flash drive and I can't begin to tell you how it feels to know that I haven't lost all that work - years and years worth of the stuff!

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