The Best Practices to Avoid Losing Files and Applications

Now that you’re a quasi-expert in the causes of lost or damaged files, let’s go over the best practices you can employ to try to keep the situation from happening in the first place:

Back up!  I know I’ve said it so often, but considering how few people actually do it, it bears repeating. Just backing up your daily files off your main hard drive can save you from much aggravation and inconvenience.

Read the documentation.  Always read through the documentation—either hard copy or online through a Help index—for an application to see what recovery methods may be supported before you get into a bad situation.

Go solo.  When you’re working on something critical, avoid having any more applications open than you absolutely need. The fewer applications that are open if a problem occurs in Windows, the better your chances that data can be written to the disk without (too much) distortion.

Also, unless you absolutely need to be connected to the Internet while you work (always a possibility), either terminate your connection, or, if you have a continuous connection with cable, DSL, or satellite access, keep your Internet applications closed. Problems from simple glitches to malicious behavior on the part of others using the Internet can make a crash while connected more likely.

Enable auto-save.  Check to see if the programs you use have an automatic save feature like Microsoft Office does. Then be sure to configure it to save your work every 5–10 minutes.

Tip 

If you work or type very fast, set up automatic saves to occur more frequently. I can easily type 100 wpm, which could make for a lot of work lost if I waited 10–15 minutes between saves and something happened to the file before the next time it was saved.

Stabilize your applications and operating system.  If you’re having problems with an application you’re working in or with Windows itself, exit your work or avoid reopening it until you resolve the instability.

Avoid saving the only copy of a file on a system or a drive you already know is experiencing problems. If it’s your only system and your only hard drive, save a copy of the file to a floppy or a Zip drive, or if it’s very large, save it onto a CD.

Don’t make major changes in the middle of a project or session.  All too often, you hear a tragic story about someone who was rushing to meet a deadline of some kind (writing a big paper, drafting an article, creating a wonderful piece of original art) who takes a break from that project to install a new application or make major changes to his or her machine. My favorite story involves a writer (thankfully, not me) who decided to take an hour’s break from a career-altering deadline to install an operating system beta test. Multiple disasters later, he was three weeks late and lost an important job (he didn’t like to back up either).

Protect your PC from unexpected power losses.  Add an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to your system to prevent situations where you lose power without the ability to properly save your work. Depending on the UPS capacity you get, you might even have time to make an extra copy of your work.

Scan for viruses.  While viruses and Trojan horses used to target only executable files (those with the .exe or .com file extensions), many viruses today wreak havoc with more file types, including macros and VBA programming.

When receiving files from others, always scan these files before you open them or save them to a disk.

Watch how you delete.  If you like to use the Command Console in Windows XP (or a DOS window for earlier versions of Windows), beware of deleting from the command prompt. Files deleted this way will not appear in the Recycle Bin and are much tougher to resurrect later if you find you’ve erased the wrong files.