Zotero is gone from my computer!

Aliya

My computer seems to have deleted Zotero! It's not in the program files, and no icons remain in Word or Firefox. I just now noticed when I instinctively reached for it and the icon wasn't there. So I don't know when it happened, or why.

I can download a new version, but my libraries are gone! Can anybody please tell me how to pull the hundreds of articles already saved on my computer back into Zotero libraries (without having to look up each one again, and import them)?

More importantly, can anybody tell me WHY this happened? My computer has been glitching up a little bit, but nothing major - no crashes or anything. For example, I made the Appdata folder "unhidden" (to easily access templates), and Word didn't like that: it kept saying it couldn't find different add-ons (including Zotero, I guess). I stupidly didn't check into that - just made the AppData folder "hidden" again, and that seemed to solve the problem.

Thanks much.

(I am sorry if this is a subject brought up earlier, and I just didn't find it in the blogs)

dstillman

Can't really speak to what you may have done on the Windows side of things, but the Troubleshooting Zotero Data page may help.

dcramer

HELP! I opened firefox and the zotero word to open my library is gone. Where is my library? and in the future, how do I back it up? I have a hard drive, but didn't think I could back up from the web...

deborah

adamsmith

http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/no_status_bar_icon
and
http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#backing_up_your_zotero_library
for anything further, please start a new thread.

dcramer

many, many thanks....

dcramer

sorry adam, you said to start a new thread, but I don't know what you mean. I can't back up the zotero library on a flashdrive as you suggested via northwestern. i went to preferences, opened the data directory, then moved up to the next level, to the file marked zotero. There was nothing called zotero-library. Assuming zotero and zotero-library are the same, I tried opening the zotero.sqlite file before I copied it, since the icon by it was blank. A sign came up that said that windows did not know what program to open the file with. I assume that means copying it won't do any good. Yes? No? deborah

dstillman

There's a large red "Start a new discussion" button at the top of every forum page.