data backup??

[Adam Maltese]

Good afternoon! I just was finishing up work on cleaning up a data set of
college transcript records. For some unknown reason, SPSS started telling me
that I couldn't save or made any more edits to the copy I was working on. I
tried a Save As, and that didn't work either. At this point I've lost the
last 4 days of (very tedious) work. Does anyone know if SPSS saves temporary
or backup files in some hidden location that I might be able to "restore"
to?



Thanks for any help.



Cheers,

Adam



****************************************************************
Adam V. Maltese, PhD Candidate in Science Education
Curry School of Education
University of Virginia
405 Emmet St. South
P.O. Box 400273
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Ph: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
****************************************************************

=====================
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For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
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[Norton, John]

Hi Adam,

You should still be able to retrieve the commands from the journal file.  Even if you use a command and interactively edit it by changing the variables and re-run it, the new command just executed should still be recorded in the journal file.

Also, if you are continuously running the same commands but manually editing the variables (or other options), I would encourage you to consider automating the processes by using SPSS macros and/or Python.  This will allow you to place tokens where the variables or other settings are in the commands, and then feed values to the tokens (variable names, for example) and thereby tremendously decrease the amount of time currently being spent manually editing the variable names.

Good luck,

John Norton
SPSS Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Maltese [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:17 PM
To: Norton, John
Subject: RE: data backup??

Thanks John. Unfortunately, I've been running everything from syntax anyway,
so I have a complete record of the operations......however, because I'm
creating summary variables and cutting and pasting, that won't work for me.

Cheers,
Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: Norton, John [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 3:14 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: RE: data backup??

Hi Adam,

There's no back up, per se.  But SPSS does by default save the commands from
your sessions.  So, for example, if you executed a frequency distribution
from the menus, SPSS saves the frequency command with all your settings to
the SPSS Journal file.

This file is called "spss.jnl" is usually saved to the Temp directory off
the C drive.  You can determine where the journal file is saved by looking
under Edit > Options from within SPSS.

As this file is essentially a record of your work, written in SPSS commands,
you can recreate your work by locating the time stamp in the journal file
from when you started your work.  Then, simply copy and paste the commands
to a syntax window and run them interactively.  I've found that it's best to
run the commands in blocks, and not all at once, so that you can more
effectively retrace your steps.

I hope this helps.

John Norton
SPSS Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Adam Maltese
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 1:58 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: data backup??

Good afternoon! I just was finishing up work on cleaning up a data set of
college transcript records. For some unknown reason, SPSS started telling me
that I couldn't save or made any more edits to the copy I was working on. I
tried a Save As, and that didn't work either. At this point I've lost the
last 4 days of (very tedious) work. Does anyone know if SPSS saves temporary
or backup files in some hidden location that I might be able to "restore"
to?



Thanks for any help.



Cheers,

Adam



****************************************************************
Adam V. Maltese, PhD Candidate in Science Education
Curry School of Education
University of Virginia
405 Emmet St. South
P.O. Box 400273
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Ph: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
****************************************************************

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

[Whanger, J. Mr. CTR]

I can empathize, but don't know a solution. I lost an entire day of work
this week because a file I know without question I saved, disappeared.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Adam Maltese
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:58 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: data backup??

Good afternoon! I just was finishing up work on cleaning up a data set
of college transcript records. For some unknown reason, SPSS started
telling me that I couldn't save or made any more edits to the copy I was
working on. I tried a Save As, and that didn't work either. At this
point I've lost the last 4 days of (very tedious) work. Does anyone know
if SPSS saves temporary or backup files in some hidden location that I
might be able to "restore"
to?



Thanks for any help.



Cheers,

Adam



****************************************************************
Adam V. Maltese, PhD Candidate in Science Education Curry School of
Education University of Virginia
405 Emmet St. South
P.O. Box 400273
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Ph: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
****************************************************************

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list
of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

[Marks, Jim]

Depending on settings, you might be able to recover the syntax that SPSS
used to perform the analysis, and redo the work. This is possible even
if you used the GUI to conduct your analysis.

SPSS creates a .jnl file that stores all the commands run. You can find
the location under
Edit-->
        Options -->
                General  -- Session Journal.

Hopefully append is selected. (Overwrite creates a new file each time
you restart, I think)

This requires your original data file saved in a different file the one
you analysed.

Anything done directly in the GUI (e.g. adding/ deleting variables,
editing data values, updating value labels or variable labels) is not
recorded in the journal

Reading the journal can be confusing (especially if you used muliple
sessions of SPSS).

Good luck

--jim


-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Whanger, J. Mr. CTR
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:42 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: data backup??

I can empathize, but don't know a solution. I lost an entire day of work
this week because a file I know without question I saved, disappeared.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Adam Maltese
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:58 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: data backup??

Good afternoon! I just was finishing up work on cleaning up a data set
of college transcript records. For some unknown reason, SPSS started
telling me that I couldn't save or made any more edits to the copy I was
working on. I tried a Save As, and that didn't work either. At this
point I've lost the last 4 days of (very tedious) work. Does anyone know
if SPSS saves temporary or backup files in some hidden location that I
might be able to "restore"
to?



Thanks for any help.



Cheers,

Adam



****************************************************************
Adam V. Maltese, PhD Candidate in Science Education Curry School of
Education University of Virginia
405 Emmet St. South
P.O. Box 400273
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Ph: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
****************************************************************

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list
of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list
of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD