Clients keeps losing data in the dumbest possible ways.

[thecomputerguy]

Nothing much here mostly a rant I suppose.

I have a Law Firm with 3 stations. One of the stations is a beefed up workstation acting as a file server because well ... budget of course. I've gotten a call from each one of the stations this week for data loss.

First one, one of the employees accidentally overwrote a file. No big deal, restore from backup.

Second one, the employee informs me that she took an original file and duplicated it to make changes to the duplicate. Upon making those changes to the duplicate she wanted to get rid of the original to replace it with the duplicate with the 3 hours of work into it. So she saves the duplicate with the updated changes, deletes the original, then renames the duplicate to the original. Turns out she was sick and actually deleted the duplicate she made the modifications to and the original remained. After which I got an email saying, "So you're saying I have re-do the WHOLE F***ING THING". Like it was my fault she permanently deleted he document from a network resource... There was literally not enough time for the backup to even grab the changes because she deleted it immediately upon finishing.

Third one, best one. Employee is working on a billing document for DAYS at a time. Calls me asking why the computers were off when they came in this morning. How the F should I know? Turns out they had a power outage lastnight. The employee had been working on a document for DAYS without saving and instead of saving he just decided he'd continue his work the next morning by leaving said document open probably like he had been doing for the last few days. Power outage, computers MIA, "AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE BACKING THESE UP AS WERE WORKING ON THEM?"

I've had pretty sh*t success with restoring from Autosave but I told him I'd check it and see if I could find anything but it was doubtful because Word did not crash, the computer was power disconnected and there would be a good chance he's have to reproduce his work.

These are people that I'd consider above average when it comes to usage. You'd think they'd SAVE THEIR SH*T ONCE IN AWHILE.

Side note: is there any way to make Windows dump a deleted network resource into the recycle bin instead of a permanent delete?

 

[Alexey]

You'd think in all these years MS might have figure out working continuous forced autosave, and also figured out not to allow any file to be created without specifying backup location for it first. That sounds somewhat totalitarian though. But that says me who supports forced unavoidable unsuppressable Windows updates for everyone.

 

[GreyWolf]

@thecomputerguy Was curious to see if there was a solution so I searched a bit, Dunno if something like this can help http://coolstuff.ws/software/netrbin edit: I think no longer active for sale I should of double checked.

The original link to where I read about it is here https://web.archive.org/web/2012090...erver/30136686/network-drive-recycle-bin.aspx

Shawn W. Dion
aka GreyWolf

Edit : There might be a few other workarounds from here. https://superuser.com/questions/160990/put-files-deleted-over-the-network-into-a-windows-trash-can (Some good tricks might work for your need)

 

[timeshifter]

 

[timeshifter]

Referring to the couple in the video featured in this thread: https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/apple-is-not-your-friend.81909/

I just started watching the video, but early on I want to scream: you've been on a trip for 5 months and NEVER backed up any photos, for 5 MONTHS. Then when you get home you still don't back them up, not only that you go out on a boat with the damned phone in your pocket and it falls in the water??? WTF PEOPLE!

Backing up an iPhone is not hard. You switch on iCloud photos and they backup automatically.

 

[goldmercury]

Get users to save to one drive - autosave enabled by default.

Other issues would also be taken care of with onedrive.

 

[frase]

bhaha duplicate of a duplicate x10 - I offsell JottaCloud to clients. Allows sharing of files between users and synch for idiots.

 

[brandonkick]

Your fighting users.... not technology. Sounds like a good client to fire. If they are too cheap to run a proper "sever" (read synology NAS) then they are probably for damn sure too cheap to pay you worth a damn for your time.

I'd be drafting up that Dear Sally letter this afternoon... goodbye.


My parents never had a lot of money when I was growing up, and hell still don't to this day. They worked harder than most to give me every thing I needed. I didn't have a lot, but I always had enough. I had to wollop quite a few kids at school who had something sideways to say about my family because of it. The things my parents gave me that NO amount of money can buy is a good work ethic, a good set of morals, respect, and an open mind. I don't treat people like these customers treat the OP. "AREN'T WE PAYING YOU FOR THIS?!?!?" No. Not even close. You aren't paying me to field unexpected random acts of ignorance based upon YOUR errors and not mine. I'd have told the client we need to schedule a meeting to properly set expectations and to offer some advice about work flow. If that didn't go well, It would simply be in everyone's best interest to part ways.

 

[HFultzjr]

The biggest issue I have is:

Customer: I can't find xyz file. It was here a minute ago.
Me: Where is it saved?
Customer: In Word...............WTF!
Me: No, not what program, but where was the FILE SAVED.
Customer: On my computer.
LOL!

 

[nerd2u]

It won't matter what you sell them they will still find a way to mess it up.

Sounds more like a I don't want to explain to my boss I have to reproduce 3 days of work so it's easier to throw the IT guy under the bus and tell everyone it is his fault.

Or tell them to get a diesel generator.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[timeshifter]

The biggest issue I have is:

Customer: I can't find xyz file. It was here a minute ago.
Me: Where is it saved?
Customer: In Word...............WTF!
Me: No, not what program, but where was the FILE SAVED.
Customer: On my computer.
LOL!

If I've heard that once I've heard it 1,000 times. So many users have no effing clue when it comes to the basics of how to operate their computers.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Sounds like the perfect candidate to move the office to O365..."instant save, co-authoring, over 200 revisions kept..."

 

[backwoodsman]

So many users have no effing clue when it comes to the basics of how to operate their computers.

And the totally clueless people keep getting younger and younger. Decades ago many of them were really old, but I've noticed that nowadays more and more of them are even younger than me.

 

[fencepost]

The system losing power is actually the kind of thing I'd expect Word to recover from fairly well in most cases. It's the "Close Word, no don't save, where's my document?" that you can't do anything about.

As for the backups, "I can absolutely set up something that makes backups of any changes every 15 minutes and alerts me if it runs into problems, but that's the kind of thing that comes with a monthly subscription cost that might be as much as a couple hundred dollars. On the upside, it'll also make it much easier to recover quickly if you ever have a serious problem like a flood, fire, etc."

 

[Jeremiah]

I use file redirect with the DC and nightly backups. This has been great for the company and users at most at any time only one day work is lost. I usually have a recovery request once every two months from a user losing some document or deleting a folder from the network share by accident.