All Data Lost

[MadDog]

I have been using TD 2 for years. I recently purchased a windows 8 laptop for work use and installed TD 3. I set it up for my tournament and took it into work where IT installed my office software. I got home and although TD was still installed, all my data is gone. They denied doing anything that should hurt my data. Frustrated, I entered everything again. This am I turned the laptop on and TD was running with my new settings. I exited TD, did some work stuff, and started TD. All the data and saves are gone. In the preferences, my file names are listed as the preferred layout file, payout file, tournament file, etc but the only actual saves are the default sample files. I am frustrated beyond words. Any ideas? Is this a TD thing? Windows 8? WTF??

Thanks

[Corey Cooper]

Sorry to hear that, MadDog.  I understand how frustrating this can be.

First and foremost, the TD software itself will never delete any of your data.  There simply is no code within the software to do this.  Not a tournament file, not a template, nothing.  The best you can do is individually delete players, leagues, and/or seasons from your database.  And even that comes with warnings and confirmations before the software will do it.

So, having said that, this type of issue is usually attributed to either a confusion as to where the software is saving your data, or the software looking in a different location to find your data.  Of course, I cannot say what has happened in your particular situation (it's possible your IT department DID delete your data), but usually data has not been deleted, but has more likely gone missing.

I could go into where the TD stores files by default, or about using/changing the Data Store, but I think the first thing you should do is simply search your hard drive for a Tournament Director file, if you haven't already.  Open Windows Explorer, select your C: drive, then enter *.tdt in the Search box (upper right-hand corner) and see what is found.  If the data hasn't actually been deleted, it should turn up in the search.

[MadDog]

The files are simply not there. I save the events, the layout, etc. I save the tournament. I come back later that day - all is good. then I come back a day or two later and there's a red screen behind the controls -- because there are no saved files. I search for *.tdt and find only the sample file, when I know there were one or more saved files a day or so earlier.

I'm not blaming the software. I agree that there is likely no code to automatically delete these files. I think it's an OS thing or a network "permissions" thing. Pardon my wording but I'm no IT professional. FWIW I am signed in as an administrator. I am very frustrated and I cannot use TD on this computer at all unless I can figure out the problem.