October 2004
Volume 8, Issue 1

Inside this Issue...

• Statistics Canada Research Data Centre Opens
• 24-hour Card Swipe Access to SSC
• SPSS - Save Can Lose All Cases
• Windows 98/ME Support
• What’s New on the SSC Network
• Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Did you know?
• Viruses, Adware and Spyware

Social Science Computing Laboratory

Faculty of Social Science
Room 1228, Social Science Centre
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2

E-mail ssts@uwo.ca
Web: www.ssc.uwo.ca/ssnds
Phone: 519 661-2152

Managing Editor: Mary Van de Ven

    

SSC Network Update

SPSS - Save Can Lose All Cases

Peter Fewster

Over the last year a few people using SPSS 11.5.2 have encountered a situation where all cases were inexplicably lost. Documentation for SPSS 12.0.0 identifies this as a known problem:

Under rare conditions, SPSS can lose data when you save a file. You may be able to work around the problem by noting when SPSS issues a warning that all cases have been removed. If you haven't removed all cases and you get that warning, please take the following precaution, even if cases still appear in the Data Editor. Exit SPSS without saving the data file.

In addition to this precaution we offer the following tips:

  • Save your data file regularly & often.
     
  • Save your files to your H: (home) drive or your Supplemental (S:) drive. If you do lose all cases don’t despair. We may have a backup copy! For more information see Did you Know?.
     
  • The backup copy referred to in the previous tip is done at a specific time of the day. If you are entering a lot of data over a short period of time consider creating your own backups via File > Save As.
     
  • Finally, we encourage all course instructors where SPSS is used to pass this message on to their students.