I have spent the last week dealing with constant computer problems :-s

The stupid thing won't start up everytime and today it decided the external hard drive would lose all my PhD data - luckily I fooled it using another computer and am now backing up all the data onto DVD-Rs - but have spent soooo much time messing around with them, my supervisor will never believe me that it has taken me all morning (and all week!) :-s

And now you know why its called Windows ... cos typically all ya want to do is see the computer going thro' one!

If ya have any log of any calls with the Help Desk, keep track of. And get a new PC - surely the dept. can afford £2-300 on a cheap but reliable one.

Sorry to hear that sneaks. In the past I had my share of comp problems (too many trips to PCworld tech guys), so at the beginning of write-up, I just went and bought a new one. I had my old laptop since the begining of my uni life and after two theses and 7 years later it just had to go.

Would your uni let you have one for the write-up period, mine does & for PhD students they dont usually ask them back until abt 6 months. I think you will be better off sorting this right now before things can get much worse.
Good luck!

unfortunately it is my own pc - so I would have to pay. it is only about one and half years old but seems to have gone crazy since I moved house - I suspect something got knocked out of place when moving it. I have just bought a new laptop - so I can work its just I need to ensure everything is backed up about 20 times as I can't trust the PC anymore.

Ouch, my sympathies are with you. It's probably a good idea to email all your documents, etc to your email account regularly. Can be a bit tedious and time consuming, but at least this way, you have less chances of losing your data and all your hard work!

ditto on emailing stuff, that's the best way, you can access that from anywhere. use the 'auto save' on word also, I have set it up for 5 min, to avoid any crash mishaps.

Yeah - I have become an avid user of 'google docs' where I have put all my writing. I just have to worry about things like my interview sound files etc. that are too big to email - so they are on four computers, two external hardrives and now on DVD-R - that should cover it lol.

Hi sneaks, other fellow students,

had a similar problem a few days ago: "hardware malfunction, call your hardware vendor for support". Really scared me as I had thought I had lost all my files. Luckely it started again (do not know what I did, or whether it was actually me that got it going again!) and now have these files secure on DVD as well.

Perhaps a bit paranoid but I have heard that if you have files on your E mail account it is like "hanging them on a notice board". For me it is hard to imagine how someone else could get access on them, but I'm not an IT expert. Any views on saving important documents on your E mail account?:-)

I did consider getting one of those online storage facilities, but had the same fears. My PhD looks at government data - so obviously I have to keep it as secure as possible.

I work from home (part-time student) and regularly email updates to my chapters etc. to my uni account. And I also copy them occasionally to my husband's work. As a computer science graduate I don't see how sending them to the uni email is insecure. It can only be accessed by someone who knows my password, so shouldn't be eminently hackable. And, frankly, who else would be that interested in my thesis chapters? :p

Hi Bilbobaggins, Sneaks,

yeah, you are right, I cannot imagine that someone really would like to read all the boring stuff I have written (unless he / she would have a sleepinng problem).

I was more thinking about sensitive material, like for example personal confidential data, classified documents etc. For instance if you would scan in your passport and E mail it to yourself, would a hacker then be able to "find" it and use these data?

yeah, that's my worry too - my 1st study was doing interviews about peoples careers in certain gov't departments. Some of the material is very sensitive and would probably cause some kind of internal enquiry or something if it got out, especially to the press (although wish they would, then I could be the person to do it = DATA mmmm lovely DATA).

Exactly,

as part of your research protocol you have probably indicated that the interviews would be confidential and that you would take good care assuring that only you / other researchers would have access to it. It would be hard to sell to anyone if that data then, all of a sudden, would be freely available on line!

well i have anonymised the interview transcripts - so the participants themselves wouldn't get too anxious (altho it is sooo obvious who some people are even with names removed) its more the organisation that would go mental.

i have mine stored in several places. two memory sticks, a 'work in progress' DVD, a first final draft DVD,on the computer, and I've e-mailed myself a copy of the almost finished version of each chapter, think that's enough? :$ and my supervisor has copies too!