I was working on a scene yesterday and my computer shut down unexpectedly. I did save my scene before the computer shut down. When I brought Scrivener up again, the entire scene was gone (a portion which had been written months beforehand, about 3500 words, and the new section I had written that day, about 1500 words). I looked in my backup files and a document had been created for that scene. Great! Except when I opened it, it was full of hashtags/pound signs (#) instead of text. A checksum file was also created with this file, which is created when there is a problem storing or transferring document info.
Is there a way to get my scene back? I do still have the first portion saved somewhere, but it would be a bummer to lose that 1500 words (and I am sure I can rewrite it, but it would be nice not to have to do so). Apologies if this type of question has been asked elsewhere. Thank you in advance for your help!
The previous backup should have the older portion. (Check the date in Windows Explorer to see which backup that is.) The newer portion may be gone, as it sounds like the crash occurred before a backup containing that portion was created.
Thank you. You’re right: I could access the older portion, but the newer portion is lost. It’s alright, since it wasn’t too much and I actually made a voice recording of everything that happened, including some wording, before I could forget it and write it down. So, if anyone else has this problem, sorry! Save and back up your stuff.
For the future, this would be a good time to check the backup options and make sure they match the way you work.
On a Mac, I would also suggest configuring a Time Machine volume, which makes continuous backups every 15 minutes or so. I’m not sure what similar tools are available for Windows, though.
