Please, I'm begging you, if you're a researcher, archive your data, back up your files, have a data succession plan.
Chat to your library, chat to your colleagues. The best time is as you collect the data, the second best time is now.
I'm dealing with multiple different data nightmares now. People leave academia, people retire, people pass away with a plan to make a plan.
No judgement here, just sadness for all that hard work thrown into uncertainty.
Horror Story time!
I was a Desktop Support Manager for a hot minute at a University. I also was the "fixer" for the walk-in desk.
PhD Candidate comes in on the verge of tears. She had opened her laptop that morning and there was no bootable media found.
Y'all, I have never picked up a computer and *heard platters shift* (this was circa 2010-2011).
Her dissertation work, *and research analysis* were all on this physically destroyed drive. 5 years, gone.
Backup your stuff.
@j4yc33 @superlinguo - I remember the secretary who called me at Dell support for the same thing. Two years of research on one failed hard drive and she demanded that we not only fix her system (we did), but demanded we restore the data on the new drive (it's toast lady) then demanded that we return the bad drive so she could recover it (it's long gone lady) and then threatened to sue me specifically for hindering government research (if you were a government agency (and you weren't), you called into the wrong line).
Literally the last call I took at Dell as I was laid off that afternoon along with the rest of the folks who started with me.
