# I lost everything on my computer



## Mark_f (May 10, 2017)

I got a new computer last week. 
I transferred all the files from  my old computer to an external hard drive to load on my new computer. 
I DROPPED THE HARD DRIVE ON THE HARDWOOD FLOOR!!! It now does not work and all my prints, files, photos, and articles for everything I have ever built are GONE. If anyone has any plans or files that I sent them , please send me a copy to try and restore what ever I can.


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## vtcnc (May 10, 2017)

mark_f said:


> I got a new computer last week.
> I transferred all the files from  my old computer to an external hard drive to load on my new computer.
> I DROPPED THE HARD DRIVE ON THE HARDWOOD FLOOR!!! It now does not work and all my prints, files, photos, and articles for everything I have ever built are GONE. If anyone has any plans or files that I sent them , please send me a copy to try and restore what ever I can.



Mark find a data recovery service. They may be able to repair the drive and recover the files for you.


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## brino (May 10, 2017)

Ouch!
Mark I feel your pain.

Any chance you still have access to the hard drive in the old machine?
Even if the files were deleted on that machine there still might be a chance.
Deleted files are non necessarily gone.

Using the software below I was able to recover some accidentally deleted photos from a hard drive I had used to temporarily hold some files.
I forgot which drive was which and reinstalled the Windows operating system on the drive with the photos.
When I realized what I had done I was very disappointed....trying to move too fast.

I downloaded and tried the free version of the software, it took overnight to scan the drive but in the morning showed me all the files it could recover.
In the morning I paid up for the full version and left it for the day to recover all my files.
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizardpro/
It was the best money I ever spent.

This page says that their free version can recover up to 2GB of data:
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

I realize I was also a little lucky, as the new operating system install did NOT overwrite my files.

-brino

EDIT:
I wonder if Steve Gibson's SpinRite, could recover anything from the dropped drive?
https://www.grc.com/intro.htm


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## JimDawson (May 10, 2017)

Do you still have the files on your old computer?  When you say ''transfered'' did you actually move them or just copy them.


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## Rustrp (May 10, 2017)

mark_f said:


> I DROPPED THE HARD DRIVE ON THE HARDWOOD FLOOR!!! It now does not work and all my prints, files, photos, and articles for everything I have ever built are GONE.



Nah, not lost at all, call the FBI they can retrieve everything for you. 

Seriously, I'm sure your local computer or electronics supply store has something you can purchase and someone to show you how to transfer the data. It may take something more than a USB but it's out there. Considering it takes a hammer to destroy a hard drive, a drop on the floor isn't going to delete the data. It's just being difficult and not working as intended. Good luck and keep us posted.

Edit: Here's one way with multiple choices.


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## DAT510 (May 10, 2017)

Hi Mark,

It's very possible the board inside the external case was broken and hopefully not the drive.  HD drives are designed to take pretty incredible G loads, especially when they are not spinning.  Western digital drives are typically rated at 250g's.  Some Seagate drives are up to 300g's+

You could try to remove the drive from the case and connect it to an external dock or new external enclosure.  I've pulled drives out of Western Digital and Seagate plastic external enclosures, usually because the external enclosure board went bad, and so far all the drive themselves were still good.

Like these:

Dock:  https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock

External Enclosures:  https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/External-Enclosures/

Fry's may have even cheaper ones:

Hope this helps.  Chris


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## whitmore (May 10, 2017)

mark_f said:


> I got a new computer last week.
> I transferred all the files from  my old computer to an external hard drive
> I DROPPED THE HARD DRIVE ON THE HARDWOOD FLOOR!!! It now does not work



If the 'old computer' is gone, and if you have no other backups than the external,
that's not good.   The external drive, though, has lots of parts, if it isn't the
rotating bits of the hard drive module, but the power or interface or even
wiring and connectors that took damage,  the data is still there.
The circuit boards in an external drive are more fragile than the drive's
own circuit board.   

What are the symptoms you see and hear?


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## Glenn Brooks (May 10, 2017)

Yep, second the suggestions above to have a data recovery service see what they can do.  Can't hurt, except in the pocketbook.  At least look at the internals, or have someone do that for you.  Actually, unless you are versed in various iterations of (computer) hardware , probably a lot better to have a shop do it.  

Good luck!

Glenn


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## Rustrp (May 10, 2017)

If you saved the data to the external then you still have everything on your old computer, and unless the old computer had serious issues all the data is still there so pick one and look at this as another job well done.


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## Silverbullet (May 10, 2017)

That sucks, I lost everything on my iPad when the power went by by . No battery or charge. I guess it's in there but to get it out will cost I bet. The same with your drive it's in there but getting it out .....


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## Tony Wells (May 10, 2017)

Is it a SSD?


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## EmilioG (May 10, 2017)

Data on a hard drive is never completely gone, unless you "scrub" the drive by over writing ones and zeros.
A good data recovery service will help you. Makers of some drives even do the service, like Western Digital.
Be sure to back up all of your data next time to a cloud or extra USB drive as you go, daily. Google has a cloud service that is not expensive at all.
Google Drive has free cloud space and you can buy extra space for $10-$100 per year.


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## 7milesup (May 11, 2017)

Like others have said Mark, the data is still there.  If you can't get the drive operating by yourself, there are services that can retrieve the data.  No way that that data is gone, just depends on how bad you want it back.
My guess is that the read/write arm may have been damaged or as others have said, the circuit board might be cracked/broken.  Heck, it could even be as simple as a connector internally that came undone (if it has such connectors inside).   The platter that your data is on is still good.


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## Tony Wells (May 11, 2017)

Have any connections with LEO's? They usually have a IT Forensic Dept and they would help you out. I know some people but don't think I could get them to do it for you. 

If it is a SSD, you could purchase an identical one and swap the main chip. That's why I asked. 

When I do such things I usually just slave the old HDD into the new box and make the transfer. But nowadays with not most everything being one of the many standards (SCSI, IDE, SATA or SAS, etc.) it's not always practical to use an old disk in a new box.


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## Dave Paine (May 11, 2017)

I know the frustration of hard drive issues.  I have had more than my fair share of hard drive failures.  In my case something went wrong either with the drive or the controller board over time.

An external drive is normally formatted with UNIX to save the Microsoft license for their common file format.  The board then translates the as-stored file format for Windows to be able to read the drive.

You do not state the exact nature of no longer working.  Is the box completely dead or can you hear the drive spinning but the computer cannot read the drive?

I am at the other side of PA.  Happy to take a look if you want to send the box to me.


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## woodchucker (May 11, 2017)

Recovery services are quite expensive, we use them quite often for Medical Imaging data. Aside from using RAID, sometimes stuff happens that requires we still get the data recovered.

If your old computer is not available, take advantage of whatever you can.  
I was carrying my laptop in one hand with it opened and it flew out of my hand (don't ask). Destroyed the screen, AND THE HARD DRIVE.. all was not lost as I back up regularly. I ordered a new computer same model , and it came with Windows 8.. formated it to 7 and restored from my backup... WHEW...
Backups are always nice.


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

First...... Thank you all for the suggestions, all of which are good ones. BUT,  this is mostly my own fault. When I bought the new Lenovo computer, a female friend wanted my 6 year old Dell laptop. Not wanting to leave any of my files on it, I moved them to the external hard drive. Once I was sure a complete backup was on the external drive, I erased the Dell and gave it to her. Next, I transferred all my "important" files to the new laptop. I was planning to transfer selected machine shop related files and photos, and a batch of irreplaceable family photos after setting up what was transferred earlier (I wanted to select only the files I wished to keep and not all the duplicates and trash). While carrying the drive in my hands to do this , I dropped the damn thing  on the floor ( I am 6' 4" tall so this was about a 4 foot drop). When I hooked it up it connects to the computer BUT it won't spin anymore . I was lucky I already copied my banking, checkbook, and a few photos. But the rest is still on the hard drive that won't spin. I got the bright idea to download some recovery software that says it will restore 1 gig of data for free ( yea right) to the old laptop. After three hours of scanning , All the files were listed in the software Now to save the desired files. WHAT!!!!! I have to pay $199.95 to save my files . I dont have $ 199.95  ..... ( Unless some how I can do without food this month)....... And that is the rest of the story!


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

I dont use any of those " clouds " . I never liked the idea of my s**t floating around in space . Just doesn't seem like a good idea.


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## woodchucker (May 11, 2017)

So I guess it is spinning then?
That's cheap..


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## whitmore (May 11, 2017)

mark_f said:


> [about an external disk drive that took a fall] ... it connects to the computer BUT it won't spin anymore .



That leaves open a single happy possibility: the external drive uses both +5V and +12V
power, and connection (digital logic) uses the +5V power.   Spinning the drive uses
the +12V power.   So, if the +12 is damaged or disconnected, the drive might still
be workable in a dock or other external drive casing.

This is not true if the hard disk is of the 2.5" type (those, only use +5V power for
both logic and spindle motor... or 3.3V for logic... but, not +12).


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

woochucker said:


> So I guess it is spinning then?
> That's cheap..


No , the files can be recovered from the old laptop. The external drive is bad and if you ever tried to survive on Social Security Disability, it is not cheap. $200 might as well be $2000.


What really chaps my a**, is I have a degree in industrial electronics and computer technology and always told people who came to me with their crashed computer "why didn't you back it up"? And my own stupidity cost me all my information. I been working with computers since a personal computer was a keyboard, a small DOS processor, and a cassette tape recorder for a hard drive.


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## chip maker (May 11, 2017)

Seems like this is how a lot of the FREE on line software works out, they check your stuff find what you need and than hit you with the cost of restoring  it.  I guess if they can really save all the files $200.00 may be reasonable if all the stuff is not replaceable. Another thing is to always if possible have more than one backup set. After losing a computer a while ago my computer guy said I should be using an external hard drive instead of backup software. His thought was that because if years go by the newer software may not work with the backup you have. This did happen to me as well so now all I use is the external drives and just copy the whole files instead of backup program.  This type of backup goes faster anyway and all you do is copy the files back if you have any issues.  Good luck and hope you can still get the files you need.


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

whitmore said:


> That leaves open a single happy possibility: the external drive uses both +5V and +12V
> power, and connection (digital logic) uses the +5V power.   Spinning the drive uses
> the +12V power.   So, if the +12 is damaged or disconnected, the drive might still
> be workable in a dock or other external drive casing.
> ...



The drive contains 2 1/2" discs.


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## MikeWi (May 11, 2017)

Mark, I've used this with great success, and it's free. http://download.cnet.com/GetDataBack/3000-2094_4-10061631.html

barring that, I could probably help you get them back.


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

Chip Maker said:


> Seems like this is how a lot of the FREE on line software works out, they check your stuff find what you need and than hit you with the cost of restoring  it.  I guess if they can really save all the files $200.00 may be reasonable if all the stuff is not replaceable. Another thing is to always if possible have more than one backup set. After losing a computer a while ago my computer guy said I should be using an external hard drive instead of backup software. His thought was that because if years go by the newer software may not work with the backup you have. This did happen to me as well so now all I use is the external drives and just copy the whole files instead of backup program.  This type of backup goes faster anyway and all you do is copy the files back if you have any issues.  Good luck and hope you can still get the files you need.



I used to keep a backup on an external drive AND on data CD, but the new computers...... Like my new one dont have a CD drive. Nowadays you download all your software instead of getting a CD.

I got no one to blame for this mess but myself.


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

I can live without the lost files. What hurts is ..... All the people who are often emailing me asking for plans and writeups or project information...... I can no longer send them any information.

Edit: What also hurts is..... I lost the 30 page article about building the EDM machine.


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## Bill Gruby (May 11, 2017)

Off the wall Mark, do any schools near you have a computer lab. Usually the do their own repairs and could help you out.

 "Bill"


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

Bill Gruby said:


> Off the wall Mark, do any schools near you have a computer lab. Usually the do their own repairs and could help you out.
> 
> "Bill"



The local school districts around me do not, but there maybe one or more elsewhere within traveling distance. It wont hurt to check around. 

Thanks. 


The most important lost files are all the machine shop project plans, articles, and photos. The old family photos I can live without .... hell, none of those people have anything to do with me anyway. since my youngest brother died in March, me and my dog are on our own against the world. This forum is the closest thing to family I have.


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## Mark_f (May 11, 2017)

While sitting around I opened the offending external hard drive. I got it to spin up, but it can't read the top disk (which holds the needed data to connect to the computer) because the top arm lost its read head in the shock of hitting the floor. It is definitely not going to be readable.



The only option now is to recover from the old laptop drive and that is too expensive to get my 30 page article back. 

Oh well I tried. This tragedy is over. No files will be rescued.

Thank you all for your suggestions.


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## DAT510 (May 11, 2017)

Well that sucks!  Sorry to here.


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## mksj (May 11, 2017)

Often you can pick up these older disc drives on ePay for next to nothing, if you can find the same exact model in a working drive, you may be able to remove the platter from the broken drive and put it into the other drive. As long as the platter is not damaged/broken and you can get it out, then may be worth a try. Since once open to the air and contamination, it is a toss if/after you get the data off of it.

Information can be written in many different ways in a hard drive, and it is often fragmented in different section across the disc(s), so if any of the heads/dics(s) where damaged the disk would fail. Had this happen to me years ago and also more recently, I always back up everything to a second portable disc and also have dual drives in all my computers. It still sucks when it happens.


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## Dave Paine (May 11, 2017)

mark_f said:


> The only option now is to recover from the old laptop drive and that is too expensive to get my 30 page article back.



I do not think this should be expensive to try, although it may not be successful.  I am thinking this would be running an Undelete  style utility on the old drive.  This may find the parts of old files.  The big unknown is whether the parts have been written over in the reformat and reinstall of Windows.


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## British Steel (May 11, 2017)

mark_f said:


> First...... Thank you all for the suggestions, all of which are good ones. BUT,  this is mostly my own fault. When I bought the new Lenovo computer, a female friend wanted my 6 year old Dell laptop. Not wanting to leave any of my files on it, I moved them to the external hard drive. Once I was sure a complete backup was on the external drive, I erased the Dell and gave it to her. Next, I transferred all my "important" files to the new laptop. I was planning to transfer selected machine shop related files and photos, and a batch of irreplaceable family photos after setting up what was transferred earlier (I wanted to select only the files I wished to keep and not all the duplicates and trash). While carrying the drive in my hands to do this , I dropped the damn thing  on the floor ( I am 6' 4" tall so this was about a 4 foot drop). When I hooked it up it connects to the computer BUT it won't spin anymore . I was lucky I already copied my banking, checkbook, and a few photos. But the rest is still on the hard drive that won't spin. I got the bright idea to download some recovery software that says it will restore 1 gig of data for free ( yea right) to the old laptop. After three hours of scanning , All the files were listed in the software Now to save the desired files. WHAT!!!!! I have to pay $199.95 to save my files . I dont have $ 199.95  ..... ( Unless some how I can do without food this month)....... And that is the rest of the story!




Have a look at DMDE, it's a few local currency units for a single-user copy, rescued the contents of three discs that got pooped all over when my old PC died on me - should find what's still on the "old" laptop, assuming your friend hasn't started installing everything on it and all's just erased. Ideally, take the HD from the old machine and attach it to the new, run DMDE on the new one and let it scan (some hours...) then copy what you want. I like it, a lot 

Dave H. (the other one)


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## tq60 (May 11, 2017)

In a past life we replaced heads on drives...

Look for identical drive and swap platters as they are cheap...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk


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## woodchucker (May 11, 2017)

yes but they were like washing machines, and were meant to be opened.


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## Terrywerm (May 11, 2017)

Mark, I feel your pain. I recently went through a hard drive crash and then found out that my backup strategy had not been working for a while. I did quite a bit of research and found a company that recovered the files from the failed drive for $300 plus the cost of a transfer drive. Service was very fast, and I have been a very happy camper ever since. If you are interested in their contact information, PM me.


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## Mark_f (May 12, 2017)

Well ....... I got the EDM article back! After 6 hours of work last night. The new computer would not open the file ( .wps file, which is Microsoft Works). I tried all the converters.... Nothing worked. So I figured out why and it is because it is text and photos combined, you can't save it in the needed new format. So.... I opened it on the old laptop and removed all the photos and saved it in the newer format. Then opened it on the new laptop and inserted all the photos back in and saved it. Now I have the EDM build article back. It may have been the hard way to do it but it was affordable. I forgot that many photos can be recovered from my web site on yahoo groups. Not all but some. It will take a lot of work, but I can find maybe about half what I lost ( I can't remember everything that is lost).

Good old Microsoft....... Always gave you Office or Microsoft Works with computers. Now they did away with Works and charge you $150 if you want office. They had this figured out. Let everyone use and save all their stuff in the free programs and then make you pay cause now you need it. This makes me mad, But, a program called Open Office that can be downloaded for free and is almost exactly like Microsoft Office. Even looks the same. Saves having to pay Microsoft.

From now on, I will make two copies of my hard drive on two memory sticks. ( And they still work if you drop them)


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## tq60 (May 12, 2017)

A cheap and effective backup for single files like this is gmail. 

Just send it to yourself and it will be there until you delete it.

Easy to access from anywhere by any device just by logging into your mail.

Ww use this often with phone as we find things we want copy of but do not want to store in phone to transfer later or risk loosing so we use the "share via" option and email it to ourselves and then can copy it to whatever we are using to read the mail later.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk


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## RandyM (May 12, 2017)

mark_f said:


> Well ....... I got the EDM article back! After 6 hours of work last night. The new computer would not open the file ( .wps file, which is Microsoft Works). I tried all the converters.... Nothing worked. So I figured out why and it is because it is text and photos combined, you can't save it in the needed new format. So.... I opened it on the old laptop and removed all the photos and saved it in the newer format. Then opened it on the new laptop and inserted all the photos back in and saved it. Now I have the EDM build article back. It may have been the hard way to do it but it was affordable. I forgot that many photos can be recovered from my web site on yahoo groups. Not all but some. It will take a lot of work, but I can find maybe about half what I lost ( I can't remember everything that is lost).
> 
> Good old Microsoft....... Always gave you Office or Microsoft Works with computers. Now they did away with Works and charge you $150 if you want office. They had this figured out. Let everyone use and save all their stuff in the free programs and then make you pay cause now you need it. This makes me mad, But, the american Indians have a program called Open Office that can be downloaded for free and is almost exactly like Microsoft Office. Even looks the same. Saves having to pay Microsoft.
> 
> From now on, I will make two copies of my hard drive on two memory sticks. ( *And they still work if you drop them*)



They also continue working if you run them through the washing machine.


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## Mark_f (May 12, 2017)

RandyM said:


> They also continue working if you run them through the washing machine.


Just dont put them in the dryer.


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## woodchucker (May 12, 2017)

Not sure what the American Indians have to do with open office. It's an open source foundation project. I think Sun Micro started it originally, not certain.
Open office will open Word documents  that word cannot. When a word doc gets corrupted, a co-worker used to use open office to fix everyone's disasters.
My son swears by open office, it's a good alternative to expensive software.
Lot's of open source is better than  the commercial stuff. No corporate limitations, or in many cases stupid features that don't work.


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## Stonebriar (May 12, 2017)

FYI

StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Subsequent versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, were built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation. Sun continued to sponsor development on OpenOffice.org for the next 10 years, a period during which not only did the project grow tremendously and became truly global, but the user base also saw an extraordinary increase, and as of the end of 2010 was estimated to be in excess of 100 Million. With its acquisition of Sun in 2010, Oracle was the principal contributor of code to OpenOffice.org. On June 1, 2011, OpenOffice.org, the project and product, including source code, trademarks, domain names and website, were donated to the Apache Software Foundation.


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## fradish (May 12, 2017)

I really like OpenOffice too.  The last time I went looking for it, it seemed that LibreOffice had
replaced it?  Or maybe it was just trending higher in the search.  I can't see spending money
for MS Office when OpenOffice or LibreOffice do all that I need.  

I have started to use DropBox for all of my non-confidential type documents (i.e. no financial 
or medical info).  For anything like product manuals, beer recipes, etc... I use DropBox.  I can 
sync files from my iPad, PC at home and work and I have access to all my files everywhere.  
But as Mark said, I don't trust the cloud for any file that I wouldn't want someone else to 
have access to.


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## woodchucker (May 13, 2017)

fradish said:


> I really like OpenOffice too.  The last time I went looking for it, it seemed that LibreOffice had
> replaced it?  Or maybe it was just trending higher in the search.  I can't see spending money
> for MS Office when OpenOffice or LibreOffice do all that I need.
> 
> ...



Drop box is one of the worst sites to send files, they have been hacked so many times.


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## Tony Wells (May 13, 2017)

Sometimes when newer versions of programs will not open files creates long ago, you might find what you need at oldversion.com. They host about 2,000 different programs that are not commercially available anywhere, in general.

I use OpenOffice as well, simply because I support the open source community in general and prefer to have people genuinely looking for things that simply work, rather than just the profit margin. I run Ubuntu on a standalone machine, but I know I falling behind, version-wise. I do have MS Office, but it is not the current version. I have no problems with it, and it still seems to be the most commonly used suite of programs out there.


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## fradish (May 13, 2017)

I've never had any problems with Dropbox.  I would never store anything sensitive in the
cloud, anything I put on Dropbox I don't care if anyone accesses it.  So then you would be
concerned if someone steals your userid and password, but I don't share those between 
accounts, so if someone gets that they only have access to my non-sensitive files.

Finally it isn't out of the question that someone could replace a file with one that has a virus
in it and your computer could get infected when you sync up, but that is why you run antivirus 
software.  Nothing is 100% safe, but like I said, I've never had a problem.  It is also important 
to have multiple local backups of your important files.


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