Help please, lost a file i was working on….

[Nick Minall]

Oh no, do you have SignLab setup to save a backup?

[Lorraine Clinch]

Yes……

[Marcella Ross]

Lorraine, have a look for the back up file. When you’re in signlab select back up files in the files of type box and ahve a look there.

[Nick Minall]

Yes look for a .bak file you will need to change it to a SL file

[Lorraine Clinch]

I think that when I imported the file that Marcella had sent me, I didn’t ‘save as’, as it changed to a CDL file when I pressed save.

It looked as though it saved, but I can’t find it in any of the desktop files, or old or new versions of SL-it’s just dissappeared!

Spitting fur & feathers at the mo!

[Lorraine Clinch]

I have looked at all the BAK files, BTW, not there either.

[Nick Minall]

How have you got the auto save setup?

[Lorraine Clinch]

Hi Nick, I don’t use Autosave, just have ‘create backup file when saving’ enabled.

[Nick Minall]

Then its lost 😕 maybe time to turn on auto save!

[Gary Hazard]

Hi

Are you on PC or MAC ?

If you are using a PC you maybe might find something in the
c:\windows\temp directory ?

When looking, make sure you have your viewing options
set to allow viewing of hidden and system files

To check if this option is "set" you can go into a windows explorer
and then up at the top of the screen select the following:
TOOLS – FOLDER OPTIONS – VIEW and make sure the radio button
is selected which says SHOW HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS"

With this option selected you can now go to bottom r/h corner and
START-SEARCH-FOR FILES AND FOLDERS and once there
all files and folders-date modified, and search for any files
modified today !

Hope you are on a PC and not a MAC now I’ve typed all this out 🙄

Any way good luck

Gary

[Marcella Ross]

Lorraine,

If you didn’t tell it to save to a particular folder, it is possible that it’s saved it in the Signlab folder which it does as default. Have a look in there.

[Peter Normington]

Also, while there, right click and arrange items by modified. save scrolling through them all. Also do I computer search specifing to find all files modified today. may give you something.

Peter

[David Rogers]

Long shot….but try ‘paste’, you might have copied at least a portion of the file at some point.

Dave

[Gary Hazard]

Hi Lorraine

Just to clarify my earlier post a little ….

When you have your PC set to view hidden files
there might be a .TMP file that is showing as being
modified around the time you were working on your
original file.

You will have some idea if it is the any good by the
time/date stamp and also the file size.

If you find a file which might be of any use I would copy
this file into another folder (done by "dragging and dropping"
the file whilst holding down the right mouse button), and then
changing the file extension from .TMP to .SLA and then seeing
if you can open it.

I use to have a few "crashes" with coreldraw 9 a few years
back and have used this method successfully before.

Of course all this advice is assuming that you have not had
to re-start your PC since the "freeze" as doing this would most
likely have removed any temp files that were held in the PC’s
random access memory.

PHEW !….. think that just about covers everything 🙄

Let me know how ya get on yeh ?

Gary

[Lorraine Clinch]

Hi Gary

I have tried a search as you describe, but have only found the file which I downloaded from Marcella earlier today. There is a .bak file which has the correct times on it, but I can’t seem to open it?

Thanks for all your help everyone, but it looks like I may have to re-draw everything from scratch……. 😥

[Lorraine Clinch]

Just renamed the bak file, it’s Marcella’s file. I think my work is good & lost. At least I still do have Marcella’s file, or I’d be asking for that again too!

Oh well, back to work! I really do appreciate the help though, at least I know what to do if this happens again. (and remember to ‘save as’ when importing files. What a goon! 😳 )

Lorraine.

[Dave Bruce]

Lorraine, have you looked in the folder where Marcella’s file came from, as Signlab has this nasty habbit of automatically saving the working file to the imported file location, drives me mental (yes even more).
Dave

[Peter Normington]

Lorraine, dont forget to turn on autosave in signlab, set it to save every 5 mins or so. its more important than saving a bak file.

Peter

[David Rogers]

Hmmm, I can’t stand the autosave feature as I sometimes strip out an old file for bits. (Why it’s disabled.) The LAST thing I want is the PC saving a partial file that I’ve butchered!!

I just do a quick "CTRL – S" to save when working (a lot), maybe not as efficient as the autosave, but at least I decide what, where & when it get saved.

Dave

[Lorraine Clinch]

Same reason that I stopped using Autosave Dave, it was a real nuisance (even more than losing this file!)

I’m working tonight so am going to take my laptop & re-do the lost file during my break.

Yet another sarnie & cup of tea whilst slaving away with the computer 😕

[Andrew Ritchie]

Im with Dave, I dont like Signlab to save over something that I may want to edit. I always use the (Control – S) function too.

It is handy though.

Andy 😎

[Peter Normington]

quote David Rogers:

Hmmm, I can’t stand the autosave feature as I sometimes strip out an old file for bits. (Why it’s disabled.) The LAST thing I want is the PC saving a partial file that I’ve butchered!!

I just do a quick “CTRL – S” to save when working (a lot), maybe not as efficient as the autosave, but at least I decide what, where & when it get saved.

Dave

Not sure I agree Dave, ctr s saves the file as is. autosave does the same but as a tempfile, so in the event of a crash you get back to the pointt you were at. The original file does not change untill you save the changes. if you see what I mean, whereas ctr s changes the original?

Perhaps its just my way of doing things, but autosave has got me out of stuck more than once.

Peter

Peter

[David Rogers]

Hmmm, maybe it does that now – but if I recall (I could be wrong) OLD Siglab (v 4.95 – 5.7) would save the file as is over the top, none of your ‘temps’ for later recovery, which is what has put me off using it in the past

Peter is correct :thumbup2: . Just tried it out on V7.0, and like Pete says, if your program crashes (forced a crash to check) or is shutdown without a normal save, the ‘temp’ file (autosave) opens up right at the last ‘auto save’ point. This appears to have nothing to do with the normal file whatsoever. I can see that it could be handy – but I’m just gonna stick with what I’ve been doing for years – I hate the pauses when my HDD trying to save big files ‘automatically’. (Even worse in Photoshop..)

>> doffs cap <<

Dave

[Gordon Forbes]

I would try one of these nuthin to loose http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/howto-file-recovery.html

Goop

[Rod Young]

quote David Rogers:

Hmmm, I can’t stand the autosave feature as I sometimes strip out an old file for bits. (Why it’s disabled.) The LAST thing I want is the PC saving a partial file that I’ve butchered!!

I just do a quick “CTRL – S” to save when working (a lot), maybe not as efficient as the autosave, but at least I decide what, where & when it get saved.

Dave

quote Lorraine Clinch:

Same reason that I stopped using Autosave Dave, it was a real nuisance (even more than losing this file!)

I’m working tonight so am going to take my laptop & re-do the lost file during my break.

Yet another sarnie & cup of tea whilst slaving away with the computer

• I find it a useful habit to save "milestones,"and this is not just with SignLab.
• Prior to each set of significant edits, I’ll incrementally save the file as "draft01, draft02, draft03, etc."
• If part of my design worked well in a previous draft, then I can import that portion in and reuse.
• It also helps to have a "backup" directory to manually copy files into, in case I flub something.
• After my design is all in place, I can go about clearing the files into a "scrap" directory, the contents of which I’ll delete later.

Rod at CADlink