Never open your documents from removable media

“Removable media” inclues floppy disks, CD-ROMs, Zip or Jaz disks and USB thumb drives, because they are not permanently attached to the computer. Accidents often happen when using such media. Network servers are also removable media, which some of us will find out the hard way when the server crashes or the network goes offline.

If you have files stored on removable media, use Windows Explorer to copy them to your hard drive, and then open and work on it from there. After you finished working, save the file and then copy it to the removable media.


Floppy Disk - I once had a classmate who made a last minute edit to her document from a floppy disk, without my knowledge. Unfortunately, when I tried to open it to present it to the class, Microsoft Word claimed that it was corrupted. She did not have any backup copies.

The reason why this happens is because Word, PowerPoint and many other programs create temporary files when you work on your document. If you open from a floppy disk, there may not be enough room for both the original and temporary file.

If you are lucky, you will receive an error while trying to save the file, and you can choose to save it elsewhere. If not, the program may crash or the file may appear to save normally, and the next time you try to open the file, whoops...


Zip & Jaz disks - The same warnings apply to other large removable media.


CDs & DVDs - There are some programs that allow you to create a “Direct CD” drive, which allows your CD drive to appear like a diskette. Again, it is dangerous to open a document to edit directly from the CD, especially large files like Powerpoint presentations. If you ignore this advise, you may find that you can no longer open the PowerPoint file later.

Instead, use a CD burning software like Nero or Microsoft Windows XP's CD burning feature to save the file to your CD. Your peace of mind is worth the time and effort.


USB Thumb Drives - There are some users who have a disturbing habit of leaving their thumb drives plugged into the computer all the time. They then edit their documents from the drive. This not only greatly reduces the lifespan of their drive, but also exposes the data to corruption.

With this practice, it is easy to lose your data if you remove the thumb drive from the computer while the file is still open.

To be safe, it is best to use the “safely remove hardware” utility icon (which appears at the bottom right corner of the screen when you plug in your thumb drive).


Network Servers - It is very convenient to work from the corporate server or shared drive, but also dangerous. If the network or server goes down, you may lose your work. Always copy your file to your hard drive, work on it from there, and then copy it back to the server when you are done.