Yes!

There are several options available to you to help ensure that your hard work will not be entirely lost if something unexpected happens (your computer hard drive crashes, your critical file unexpectedly becomes corrupt, or other problems).

Save Early, Save Often

You should save your file soon after creating it, and save your file frequently as you work on it. This will limit the amount of data that could be potentially lost if the computer crashes or there is a loss of power. If you don't save the file, the data cannot be recovered.

Name Your Files by Version

When you are working on an assignment over a period of more than one day, you should name your files to reflect what day you worked on them. This helps you in multiple ways - you always have a recent backup of your file, if your current version of the file becomes corrupt you can go back to the previous version and not have to start the assignment over, and you have a documented history of the assignment if it is a long-term project and a professor asks to see copies of your previous drafts for some reason.

This is best illustrated by an example:

Megan was working on a semester-long paper. She started writing the paper on January 17, 2006. When she saved the file for the first time to her computer's hard drive, she named the file longpaper011706.doc.

Megan worked on the paper again on February 3, 2006. When she opened the file, she immediately went to the File menu and selected Save as.... She saved the file as longpaper020306.doc and then worked on it for a while.

Megan returned to the paper on February 10, 2006. When she opened the file, she immediately went to the File menu and selected Save as.... She saved the file as longpaper021006.doc and then worked on it for a while. She eventually stopped working on it and took a break for a few hours. Later that night she wanted to edit the paper. When she opened the file, she immediately went to the File menu and selected Save as.... She saved the file as longpaper021006b.doc so she could see which version she worked on earlier in the day and which version she worked on in the evening.

Megan continued working on her paper throughout the semester. In April, Megan tried to open her most recent version of her paper, longpaper033106.doc and could not. The file for some unknown reason was corrupt - these things happen and always seem to happen at the worst possible moment. Because Megan was keeping previous versions of her paper and naming the files in a clear way, Megan was able to find and open the previous version, longpaper032906.doc. Instead of losing an entire semester of work, she had only lost a single revision's worth of work. It was still frustrating for Megan, but her situation could have been a lot worse.

Special note: File corruption can happen when you save to ANY media, including hard drives, network drives, flash drives, and CDs.

Network Drives

One of the best ways to save your files here at Saint Mary's College is to save them to your network drive (H:). All students receive 50MB of disk space on our network to save files to and/or host a web page. This space is accessible from any networked computer on campus, eliminating the need to carry disks across campus from computer to computer. This network space is also backed up by Information Technology every night, which makes it a secure place for important papers and other files.

Send Yourself E-mail

Another way to save your file and have it go wherever you do is by sending it to yourself via e-mail. You can access your Saint Mary's e-mail account from anywhere in the world if you use Zimbra WebMail (https://webmail.saintmarys.edu).

You can either save the file by e-mailing it to yourself as an attachment, or you can copy and paste the text of a document into the body of an e-mail message you send to yourself. You can then access your file from any computer that has an Internet connection and a web browser.

Your Saint Mary's e-mail account has a quota of 100MB. If you have questions about your e-mail quota or other e-mail issues, please refer to the ResNet FAQ at http://www.saintmarys.edu/resnet/resnetfaq.

Keep More Than One Copy

A frequent complaint heard by students to Information Technology is that they lost their only copy of a major assignment. A good rule of thumb is "The more important the data, the more copies you should have on diverse media in different locations." (Steve Hideg, Integrated Technology Programmer/Analyst, Saint Mary's College)

Important files (especially Senior Comps and Education Portfolios) should always be stored in multiple locations. If you have a personal computer, you should save a copy on its hard drive. You should also save a copy on your network drive. You may choose to archive a copy on a CD or keep a copy on a flash drive as well.

Do Not Use Floppies

Floppy disks are an unreliable method of saving files. Floppy disks are really an antiquated technology compared to network drives and flash drives. Floppy disks are easily breakable, and have a life expectancy of approximately six months of use. Please use other methods to save your data (CDs, hard drives, network drives, flash drives).