By David Gewirtz
Oh, man. I feel so bad for Steve McDonald. I can identify, because I almost lost a chapter this week, as well (that's documented in gory detail in this week's Computing Unplugged). But let's let Steve tell the tale:
I'm running Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000, using Mozilla Firefox 3.5.3.
I searched the Internet for an answer and found you. From your site: OUTLOOK Q&A, What to do when Outlook crashes... but my particular question is unanswered.
My OE crashed taking a chapter of a book (as a message) I am writing which has completely disappeared. I had my own address in the "send" box, but after restoring OE, the chapter was gone, not forwarded, not saved, not deleted; it was just not to be found.
Any suggestions how to recover this message without committing hara-kiri?
Well, most likely you're out of luck. But there is a chance. It seems like you were implying you were sending yourself your own chapter, so you can't ask the recipient of the message to send it back to you. That rules out one option.
There's a slim chance a draft of the message was saved, so you could look for that in Outlook Express. Probably not, though.
One approach would be to try searching your whole hard drive using Windows search, having it look in files, and see if there's any file "droppings" that might contain some of your text.
Another approach is to buy a hard drive data recovery program like those from Pro Data Doctor and search every byte on your hard drive. If there was any crash data deposited on the drive, you might find some of your text there. One warning: We haven't tested this company's tools and the odds are very long against you.
If you can't find your chapter, remember what I was once told (I didn't believe it, but I was told it, so use it for what it's worth): the second time you write something, it's always better. If you think that's as much hooey as I did, do remember that a lost chapter excuses a lot:
- sleeping in
- eating a completely excessive amount of chocolate
- watching a week of A-Team reruns
- playing World of Warcraft until you lose 5 pounds
- hogging all the chocolate ice cream
- ignoring phone calls from friends
- camping out in the hot tub until your skin shrivels
- talking like a pirate for a the entire week
- declaring you'll never write again
- deciding to make a career change (mine was I was going to move to Lancester and open an Amish fudge and pretzel store)
- buying a hot rod because it's time to do everything you put off previously in life
- spending an entire day window shopping at Home Depot
- buying a tile saw even though you have no tiles to cut
- buying a really big screen TV whether you can afford it or not
- waiting until the neighbor kids walk by and yelling "get off my lawn" even if you didn't even notice you had a lawn until today
- eating an excessive amount of steak or prime rib even though it makes you look like a little piggy
- or -- what one of my female friends once did when she was in a real funk -- going to the Friendly's ice cream shop and ordering a five-scoop ice cream sundae and stuffing it down your face until you pass out. She was a small woman; I honestly think the sundae was bigger than she was. But she was cute all cranky and all.
Good luck!
