Lost EVERYTHING ugh!

our old hunk of junk computer crashed a few months ago which at the time I didn't think was that big of a deal because I had all my pictures, music and daycare files backed up on my flash drive.. or so I thought. I went to open everything up last night on our new computer and everything is gone :( I don't even know how it happened.

I'm not too disappointed about the music as most of it was purchased through iTunes so its an easy fix, and most of my pictures are also backed up on my SD cards and discs and facebook. BUT Ive lost 8 years worth of themed curriculum planning, contracts, forms (every kind imaginable!), policy write ups, and my handbook. :no:

This REALLY sucks! Any advice on how to avoid this from ever happening again?

I email myself all my contrast,forms, etc.... I'm so sorry that this happened sometimes technology can be so frustrating

Oh that sucks. That's a really good idea about the email.

If you still have your computer, you maybe able to get your info or at least part of it if the right person get it for you. My hubby knows a ton about computers and that stuff and he has done it for me a couple of times. Look for someone that knows a lot about them. I cannot recommend you anyone in particular, but I have seen at Staples and Best Buy that they have computer services and repair.

email them to myself.. why have I never thought of that GENIOUS!!

Arts&Crafts, Thanks I gave our computer to my nephew he is brilliant with computers, if anyone can get the files back its him. When I gave it too him a few weeks ago I did ask him to save anything that is tagged daycare so hopefully he can recover some things!

Thankfully I have a new parent information pack that was left over from a no-show interview. So now all I have to do is get busy typing!

Instead of retyping everything, do you have access to a scanner so you can just resave?

You could buy an external hard drive instead, it is more meant for long term storage than a memory stick.

Amanda's idea is good. I have my stuff on my boyfriend's computer right now, but his is crappier than mine! I'll put it all on a stick. Thanks!

Oh no, that's awful!!!! We have all our stuff backed up on an external hard drive too, now I'm nervous! Hopefully, your nephew is able to retrieve them! I like the emailing idea too, I might have to do that!

I have been in your shoes!! Computer's hate me!! Well actually, all technology does lol

I now email all my stuff to myself, have it on a USB stick and it's on my desktop and one laptop.

I don't know if yours does this but my printer is also a photo copier. If you don't want/need to re-type you could just photocopy every time you need a sheet. If you want to make changes to things tho than you better get typing! lol

Thanks everyone for your input!

My printer can scan and photo copy, and I may be able to do that for a my individual policy pages but my contract and handbook all need to be retyped because it has our old address and phone number (we moved last July). Also I am planning on changing my daycare to a school year calendar with some other changes as well so I'm going to need to rewrite some portions of handbook anyways.

So I guess I would have had to redo a lot of it anyways it just would have been a much easier fix if my files were still saved! Oh well.. you live you learn!

Have you heard of a program called timesavr? It will not do much good for your policy handbooks and whatnot at this time, but it is an internet based program that you can manage attendance, child's records, fees, waiting lists... ect. Since it is internet based, you never have to worry about your computer crashing and losing all your data. Also, there are programs out there that you you load scanned documents into that will convert them into a word file... let me do some research for you.

Here is a wikihow article that claims that Word 2007 or newer will convert these documents for you.
http://m.wikihow.com/Turn-a-Scanned-...-Word-Document

You can also get a free 30 day trail of Adobe XL, which you can download here, we have used this on a number of occasions when revising our parent and staff handbooks. I hope this helps!

http://success.adobe.com/en/na/sem/p...140425040620:s

One more piece of advice...if you aren't sick me of already. Fact is any storage device can fail, so they best option for me so I can work on my documents wherever I need them, is to create a new outlook.com email address. From here you can store files on your "OneDrive" which is basically free online storage. Outlook is the new "Hotmail" so it is a very well known and established service that I trust.