HELP URGENT!! Lost work

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I lost information from the work file.
Last night I had a complete pln file with several stories, elevations, sections, etc....the works.

Today I tried to open it and it's completely empty.

As you may imagine, I'm completely desperate and I'd like to know if this has happened to someone else.

I've tried to look for temporary files and autosave files but unsuccessfully. I am not sure where are these located.

I tried the bpn as well, but it is empty also.

I recall, yesterday night I was having some problems with a dashed line not showing properly on a published PDF. After restarting the pc it published ok. And Im sure I saved it properly and no error window popping out on exit.

The good version had around 15 Mbytes. This one has 3Mbytes. I don't know what does the 3MBytes stand for, though.

Can anybody give me a hint on what happened to my file? If not for this one at least for future working files? My main fear is that I cannot understand WHY such thing happened.

Many thanks,
Joaquim

[Dwight]

Have you reviewed the Backup file .bpn???

[Anonymous]

Yes.

It is the same as the PLN file. Like I said. I don't know what happened. Maybe I saved the currupt file twice ending up overwriting the BPN as well.

😞

[Anonymous]

perhaps you saved the file to an alternate location or under a different name. search your hard drive for .pln files that were recently modified.

[Anonymous]

I was about to suggest what Dom said.

Also - are you on a network? If so, and if the server is running SBS2003 you should be able to get a previous version of the file:
1)Right click on the file
2)Click on Properties
3)On the window that comes up click the top right tab called 'Previous Versions'. (see attached image).

I know that's a couple of big IFs, but it might help.

[Dwight]

I suspect that from the condition of your backup file that your cat or pet iguana inadvertently deleted this data.

While this horror has never happened to me, I have always used the sequential daily save method as an archiving and protective backup strategy. At the end of each day, when the project is saved, the project is ALSO saved as the next day's project. This means that you have a project record for every day of the week: each day's decisions. I do this because I HAVE had the horror of wanting to review something I over-wrote. Changed my mind twice, eh?

It is a flaw of Archicad that each design alternative from yesterday is so easy to inadvertently mess up with today's design development that you can lose valid alternatives by saving over them. This has happened to me, and it is a relief to copy parts from an old file into the current workspace.

And another flaw is saving after inadvertent deletion of elements. Since the undo queue is dropped after each save, as soon as you save a project with errant deletions, you geese are cooked. Like, why is the "S" key right next to the "Z" key. Deadly. Nice to spelunk yesterday's save to recover stuff.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure i like the idea of having 5 different copies of my model file hanging around - i think it might promote confusion when returning to a project you haven't worked on for a while. How do you ensure everyone knows what is the latest and appropriate file to work on?

Data back-up and safety, however, is a very important topic. I would be interested in hearing what kinds of techniques other users implement to develop a set of best practices.

for myself, I use a freeware product to perform an incremental backup to a network drive daily and to an external drive that i take home weekly. In addition, I have 2 hard drive in my local computer configured in a RAID 0 (duplicate copies) In case one fails another is immediately available.

[Anonymous]

Hi Dom,

Care to share the name of the freeware software you are using?
I'm currently using the DriveHQ. 1Gb free.

[Anonymous]

The program is called Syncback and is available free at:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html

note, when I said back-up to a network drive, I mean a drive located on my local network and not through an internet service.

[Dwight]

You keep yesterday's work around to quickly revert or to copy parts that you inadvertently delete today. Once a project is saved or you pass the undo queue, what do you do about a mistake? This is about decreasing the backup void.

I work alone, so remembering to open a new version every day is not a problem.

When you make incremental backups, the last version gets OVERWRITTEN, right? So when you revert, it is to last week's work. This is fine if you mess up on Monday, but as the work progresses throughout the week, your exposure increases.