Where are my .scrivx files?

I have a mess. My hard drive crashed because Windows 10 update kept failing to install, and kept retrying for over a month (long story). It turns out my iDrive cloud backup had been failing for a week – without me knowing – probably because of the repeatedly failing attempts to update Windows 10. It would churn through installation for quite some time, then revert to the old version, which must be taxing on the system.

I didn’t realize the backups had stopped until I got out an old PC with Windows 7, downloaded my files from iDrive, installed Scrivener and began looking for my latest project. I found two project files (which were not up-to-date) and no sign of the other 21 or so. iDrive tech support couldn’t find them. In Scrivener on this old backup PC it looks as if they’re there – the file names are listed under “binder” – but the documents are blank.

Today I managed to use a USB SATA/IDE cable to attach the crashed hard drive to the replacement PC, showing up like any other external drive, and have searched it for scrivx files but am not finding much other than the original test/tryout document.

Any guidance on where to look?

What a way to end my last feature for the monthly magazine where I’ve worked for 20 years and recently took a generous buyout. All notes and interviews might be gone.

A .scrivx file is actually just an .xml file that has been associated to Scrivener. If through all that the files became unassociated to Scrivener, your system may only see them as .xml files. Search for .xml files and see if they show up.

To expand on that, once you find a .scrivx file, you want to copy the enclosing .scriv folder and all its contents, including the .scrivx file.

Also, you might want to figure out where the Scrivener backups folder was on the old drive. If you didn’t change it, then look at your current computer’s Scrivener settings (Tools->Options->Backups will show the backup folder in version 1). That’s a good place to go for every project that you’ve worked on, giving you a few copies of every project.

Never mind. The IT guy at work helped me find them.