Disaster....lost Family Tree Maker

[big g]

Feel so foolish...................yesterday meant to clear laptop of cookies and such garbage, instead "refreshed" laptop, which meant I lost Family Tree Maker, emails not stored into documents, contacts list, etc.

It was last year since my F.T.M. was backed up by my son onto disk, so not everything lost, JUST many months research and info

Son won't be able to put the disk on for a while sadly.

When he called here yesterday I told him what I had done, he asked did I not read the Windows 8 Simple Steps book first .................................thought I had, but obviously misunderstood, I tend to speed read

Watch this space!

Glenys

[MaryA]

That sounds horrendous, poor you! Mind you I've seen Windows 8 on friends laptops and I'm glad I'm still on something I understand.

Hope you get lots from your back up copy - get yourself a flashdrive so you can do it yourself.

[dickiesam]

Hope you get lots from your back up copy - get yourself a flashdrive so you can do it yourself.

Ditto that about the backup disc. And double ditto about a flash drive for backups. Use one every time you make a change or enter data into the program. A good quality 8 Gb flash drive can be got for about a fiver and would hold a huge amount of data. Doing a full data backup of FTM files could take less than a minute.

I use two. One for instant backups before I close the program and the other about once a month, as a precaution.... just in case!

[Joe Griffiths]

i use a FREE program called Paragon Backup and Recovery (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/) which enables me to make a complete copy of my hard drive (operating system, programs, data, e-mails etc) and save it to an external hard drive. I run a back up before I go on holiday and store the external drive well away, brother's house etc. just in case the PC fails or some kind person breaks in and steals my PC. It is then a very easy job to restore the PC (or a new one) EXACTLY as it was. I have used this system on several computers and it takes all the hassle and heartache out of losing important data. Hope this helps, Joe

[MaryA]

That is an excellent idea too. I would recommend a combination of both, the problem with a complete back up such as Paragon may well take quite sometime depending on what is on your hard drive, so the complete job should perhaps be done a couple of times a year, such as Joe says, when going on holiday. With regular smaller back ups to either a flash drive, or even also onto the external hard drive, of just your family tree.

Most FH programmes these days have a backup and restore facility so it can be done easily, I know Family Historian does and I can't imagine Family Tree Maker would be behind in this.

[big g]

Thanks Mary, D.S., and Joe,

When I get over feeling dejected and idiotic, and feel like doing some research once again, I will most certainly be backing up frequently. Will look into Joe's suggestion too.


G

[Fledge]

Oh poor you, Glenys. It is easily done - I felt flattened when it happened to me, particularly as I was the one who was forever going on about the importance of my offspring backing up their uni work! They learnt the hard way, and so did I.

[chrisrose]

Glenys,
So sorry to hear of your loss.
Wondering if you have any cloud storage? If you are running windows 8 I think you should have.
I have done lots of updating of my tree recently and was worried in case I lost anything before the other half could set up a proper backup system (now done ) so I just copied my FTM database to the cloud for safe keeping.
Hope your son can sort you out.
Chris

[Katie]

I can vouch for Joe G. He saved 8 years of work on his thingy me jig thingy. He told me "don't worry Kath, I can get all your stuff" And he did.