IT help recovering a document

Ben6899

On Monday evening, I emailed a MS Word document from home to work. I modified the document yesterday morning at work, saved it and then emailed it back home to continue editing. When I opened the email last night at home, the document attached was Monday evening's incarnation so I thought I had somehow emailed an older version.

I got to work this morning, opened what I thought would be the latest copy, but guess what; it's the old one.

How could this have happened? I was constantly saving the file to - I reckoned - My Documents and when I finally closed it, the PC didn't need to ask if I wanted to save... I know you can't see my file structure, but where on earth could yesterday's latest version have been saved?

Does MS Word put temp copies of interim drafts somewhere? I wrote a lot of technical text and I'd like to get it back and save some time and effort!

Please help! If you can...

Thanks

DCowling

Don't want to state the obvious,bbut have you 'saved as' then gone on to send the origional

alternatively look up recent documents on start menu

Ben6899

Thanks for the suggestion. I obviously did email the original copy, you're right. So where did my newer draft (with a good few extra pages) get saved to?

I'm back at work now where the latest copy was "created". I've looked all over and it's like I never did the work! A search reveals no modified .doc (.docx) for yesterday's date. :?

DCowling

I'm no IT whizz but I am bloody good at saving in the wrong place or file type etc.
I use office 2007 and tend to save in 97-2003 so it is compatible with oher pc's,
If you have " saved as" then the doc would need renamed as the pc would not allow 2 docs with the same name or it would call it doc 1, however I have been known to save as notebook etc due to a combination of my muckle fingers, lack of concentration and mouse that has a mind of it's own.
I'm sorry if this is of little help but it's all I would do ( and do, do often). the most likely place is recent documents

anto164

if you haven't turned off the computer, there may be a .temp file with the document in, but it's been a while since i've done it, and i couldn't tell you where to find it. Look through the m$ word program files.

also, check this out..

http://www.hackcollege.com/2007/10/17/1 ... -word-doc/

Bobbinogs

Hi Ben,

As others have said, you have probably saved the doc in your default temp directory. If you are using email then this could be many things (that may be impossible to guess) but a good way of finding out what this is:

Find another email with an attachment, open the attachment and choose Save as...

Then, go to the top of the windows dialogue box and you will see a drop down arrow after "Save in", hit that and it will have the full path, e.g., Local Disk/Docs and Settings/Username, etc., and then it could end with some very strange temp space, e.g., OLK25.

Once you have made a note of the directory, go and open it and you should find your doc in there.Good luck.

deptfordmarmoset

I'm a pretty low-level IT user so this may be an idiotic suggestion, but if you use a long enough passage of text that's common to both documents and do a text search - and then go off an have a coffee - when you get back, with luck, the two docs containing that text should have been found.

Mr_Cellophane

deptfordmarmoset wrote:

I'm a pretty low-level IT user so this may be an idiotic suggestion, but if you use a long enough passage of text that's common to both documents and do a text search - and then go off an have a coffee - when you get back, with luck, the two docs containing that text should have been found.

A search for documents modified since 10/8/2010 would be easier. What email software are you using ? Outlook or something decent ?

Ben6899

Thanks for all the input chaps. I emailed from home using Hotmail and my work email uses Outlook.

I'm off for a coffee now so will start a search for all docs modified yesterday... I don't hold out much hope to be honest!

Cleat Eastwood

Just look in words recent documents. It remembers well over the last ten pieces you worked on.

Ben6899

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

Just look in words recent documents. It remembers well over the last ten pieces you worked on.

Where are they found?

DCowling

Start Menu

My recent Documnets ( top right hand side)

DCowling

or do a search for all file and documents
recent modification

click on advanced options and tick search hidden file and folders

Ben6899

Aah, I've looked there already. No joy.

I'm going to admit defeat and make sure the next lot of text is even better AND saved in the correct place!

Thanks for all the advice so far, I'll keep you all in mind when I'm clearing out my bike 'junk'...

DCowling

talking of junk
have you checked recycle bin just in case you put there

Cleat Eastwood

As Dcowling said, if its word 2007 > the big bubble button>recent documents.

if its earlier word File> and at th ebottom should be a list of recently opened documents.

You could also try going to File> Open and type in the first letter of the doc you saved, you should then see a list of all docs that might be related, as dcowling suggested maybe word has apeended a 1, to th eoriginal.

thecrofter

Bobbinogs wrote:

Hi Ben,

As others have said, you have probably saved the doc in your default temp directory. If you are using email then this could be many things (that may be impossible to guess) but a good way of finding out what this is:

Find another email with an attachment, open the attachment and choose Save as...

Then, go to the top of the windows dialogue box and you will see a drop down arrow after "Save in", hit that and it will have the full path, e.g., Local Disk/Docs and Settings/Username, etc., and then it could end with some very strange temp space, e.g., OLK25.

Once you have made a note of the directory, go and open it and you should find your doc in there.Good luck.

This is the answer, I come across this all the time at work. If you track down the temporary folder your latest copy will be there. You may have to Show Hidden Files and Folders in the Folder options to browse to the temporay folder, you can google to find out how to do that it's very straightforward

DCowling

Ben 6899

did you have any luck with the doc recovery

Ben6899

Hi mate,

Sorry I meant to update everyone who helped... Nope! I bit the bullet and redrafted the text which I lost AND learned a valuable lesson at the same time.



All's well that ends well.

DCowling

Bummer