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Re: st: Recovering files
From
Phil Schumm <[email protected]>
To
Statalist Statalist <[email protected]>
Subject
Re: st: Recovering files
Date
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 11:15:48 -0600
On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:09 AM, Estrella Gomez <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was wondering if there is any drive where Stata makes automatic backups of the data and do files. I really need to recover some important information, but I have lost both the data and the do files
This is obviously of no immediate comfort to those who have lost work, but since this is the second report of this in 2 days, it is worth pointing out that there are now several options for maintaining constantly updated backups with little or no effort on the part of the user. For example, on OS X, Time Machine will keep hourly backups automatically; these are then gradually (and automatically) pruned to weekly and then monthly backups as your disk fills up, but in terms of a continual backup that requires almost no effort, it can't be beat. Plus, it will even continue to save hourly backups to your internal disk when your backup disk is unavailable, such as if you are using a laptop on a trip (many people are unaware of this). There are several similar utilities for Linux, such as Back In Time, TimeVault and FlyBack. In sum, purchasing an external drive (for $100 or less) and spending literally no more than 5 minutes to set it up (in the case of Time Machine) is a wise!
investment.
[Note: I'm sure that Windows now has similar functionality -- I'm simply not familiar with it.]
Second, I *always* have a log file open whenever I'm using Stata interactively; this is handled by a program which is automatically executed by my profile.do file. These are stored in a temporary directory, organized by date and time. Thus, if I ever want to retrieve the commands (and output) from a previous session, I can either search by date/time or grep the files by keyword. Once you set this up, you never have to think about it again.
As everyone knows, there are two types of people in the world: those who have lost files, and those who *will* lose files. Thus, times like this are useful opportunities for everyone else to re-evaluate their own backup strategies, and make sure that they are covered.
-- Phil
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