INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE/DECEMBER 6, 1988

 

 

Lost and Found Department: (Computer Version)

Lots of things go missing
around a College. Binders. Mit-
tens. Toques. Umbrellas.

Computer files. Things like

that.

You are on your own when it
comes to most things that you
may have lost, but if it was a
computer document or file that
you're looking for, the Systems
and Computing Department
may be able to help.

As you are well aware, there
are degrees of "lost". When you
are searching for your car keys
and they are in your other pants,
they are simply "misplaced".
However, when your wallet has
suspiciously disappeared with
all your credit cards in it, it may
really be gone. That doesn’t
mean that it is impossible to
recover, of course. You may
still get it back - sans cash per-
haps, but essentially whole.

And so it is with computer
files.

Simply "Misplaced" Files

Have you had the experience
lately of going into a sub-direc-
tory, creating a file, saving it,
and returning to look at it later
only to find that it has “disap-
peared"? Perhaps you were
caught off-guard by one of the
idiosyncrasies of the List Files
Screen.

If you were raised on Word-
Perfect 4.05, you were used to
accessing a highlighted listed
file by pressing NEWLINE.
When WordPerfect 4.2 arrived,
we all had to get used to press-
ing I instead to retrieve a file.

 

The same change also effects
the way you access sub-direc-
tories. If you press NEWLINE,
the files in the sub-directory will
appear on the screen in the nor-
mal way and you may retrieve
them as usual but new docu-
ments you create will not be
saved in that directory. If you
start a new document from here
it will be saved in your Root (or
initial) directory. The safest
way to change directories is to
use 7 in the List Files Screen or
the = (equals sign) immediately
after pressing F5 (List Files).

"Gone But Not Forgotten"
Files

You are editing a large (or
favourite) document and sudden-
ly it appears to be "lost" to that
"Great Bit Bucket" in the sky.
What to do??

The "I Can Handle This
Myself" Solution:

If you were using Word-
Perfect, first check your ROOT
(initial) directory for files that
look like 1. WORDPER-
FECT06.BACKUP. If there are
any there, check the date and
time they were created and
retrieve the appropriate file.
Save the file under its proper
name and continue editing.
WordPerfect backups are made
automatically every 10 minutes,
so you won’t lose more than 10
minutes work.

The "If All Else Fails"
Solution:
If there is no WordPerfect

backup to retrieve or you were
using another program, don’t

 

 

 

cut your throat, just drop in to
the Systems and Computing
Department and fill out a "Re-
quest for File Recovery" form.
It may be possible to recover the
file.

The time required for file
recovery varies depending on
when the file was created or last
modified and when the Systems
Department receives your re-
quest. It is very important that
we know when the file was
created or last changed as the
recovery method differs. It may
take 2 hours or two days depend-
ing on how long ago the
document was changed. (We
will be able to tell you how long
it will take providing the infor-
mation you supply is accurate),
The maximum time should be
no more than two days. But
check the Bad News below,

The Bad News:

The recovered document will
not contain any changes you
made the day the file was lost.

The Really Bad News:

If you were working on a
brand new document and there
was no WordPerfect backup
created, there is nothing the
Computing Department can do.
Sorry.

P.S."Lost" usually means
deleted or overwritten. The
computer VERY RARELY
loses files (and only if the Sys-
tem goes down).