tip : how to recover your lost text

I see a lot of people who post saying that they typed the content of their thread and that suddenly everything disappeared, because they closed the tab, or hit the back button on their browser, etc.. And I imagine it happens to even more people that don't bother to post about what happened. But for this tip to work, when you realise you have lost your text, you have to stop doing anything you are doing, so you have to know the tip before the situation happens, hence this thread.

1) Download and install HxD, works only on Windows, but I guess if you are a Linux user, you probably know about this type of hexadecimal tool and you have one of your own.

2) Launch HxD, in the "Extras" menu, click on "Open RAM..."

3) In the list, choose the process with the name of your web browser. For me it's Firefox, and it's only one process, but for those who use Chrome it's a bit more complicated because Chrome creates many "Chrome.exe" processes, so you have to repeat step 3 and 4 for each of those processes. I haven't tried using IE or Opera etc..

4) When the RAM attributed to your process is displayed, in the "Search" menu, click "Find", and type in the search box any word that you remember from your lost text. If all goes well, you should find at least a big chunk of the text you have lost. Select it, right click on it, copy it and paste it somewhere else.

The way it works is that data is not really erased until is it overwritten by new data, that is why you have to stop doing any other thing you are doing.

a reply to: gosseyn

We've been saying a long while...everyone has a word program on every device ie: texts, letters, lists etc.

Type your complete work off-site...cut and paste from your program into ATS....then post when ready. Done.

Your suggestion isn't necessary...works...but everyone has a word program already.

a reply to: gosseyn

If you are creating a thread, or even a long post it makes sense to do so in a word processor and then copy it into ATS intact.

ETA: Sorry about repeating the tip. When I made this post at 5:53, there was none showing from 9:32. That lag isn't typical.

I just constantly highlight and copy the text after every few paragraphs, that way if anything goes wrong you just have to click and paste.

Its the easiest way of eliminating the possibility of losing what you've written.

Something tells me a woman invented this, just saying

I just wish the system in place for the forum was like other forums. . . It's so user unfriendly.

Something like if you want to Bold text, you just highlight it and press bold button - on other forums. . . on this forum you have load the text into the clipboard, paste it into the dialog box that appears and click OK.

lame.

When I type something that tends to have a lot of text, I always just do ctrl+a and then ctrl+c. It copies everything. Should something go wrong , I can just paste what I was writing.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

I don't have what you say I have.

This thread is good. Your reply is not.

a reply to: and14263

Others agree with me telling you to compose elsewhere and then cut n paste: ice? No lost posts or replies, composition.

No need for your sarcasm to us telling you to use this method