Lost letters in 4.1.3 & 4.1.5 after Windows 10 install

[jeff1]

Hi, Wonder if anyone can assist: - Had problems with Windows 10 version 1803 updating to Windows 10 version 1809, so Microsoft 'kindly' had to wipe my laptop of everything to start Windows afresh - unfortunately they did not save the documents I had written over several years under OpenOffice versions 4.1.3 and 4.1.5, and they have been unable to retrieve the information since. Does OpenOffice have tools available for me to retrieve the letters, or am I left in the position of being unable to retrieve them?

[RoryOF]

If they wiped your laptop - i.e., reformatted the hard drive - then there is nothing to be done at any reasonable expense. Forensic data recovery might recover the file or might not, but at a cost into three, if not four figures. If you have a printout (even an interim one), it will be possible to OCR this (i.e., turn it back into text) and give you once again an editable file.

[jeff1]

Hi, Thanks for the answer - not sure it is what I wanted to hear with the possible expense to retrieve the info though! I wonder if I may have been a bit naive in the way I put the question - forgive me if this is the case. When I say Microsoft wiped my laptop, I meant they had to delete Windows 10 version 1803 and start afresh with a new version (Windows 10 version 1809) - at the same time wiping my apps, although saving some of my files and folders - although not apparently saving OpenOffice 4.1.3 and 4.1.5 or it's letters - that I can see. So if in-fact the laptop was not 'wiped' as such, would there be tools available to locate the OpenOffice apps with it's letters?

[RoryOF]

No specific OpenOffice tools. Download and try Recuva or PhotoRec (only one needed); this may find your missing files.

Edit: Also try a system file search for part of a name you know was an OO file.

[robleyd]

If you didn't change the default location for AOO to save files, they should be saved in My Documents. Look there to see if they have been recovered. You will probably need to re-install AOO.

[Bill]

...saving some of my files and folders - although not apparently saving OpenOffice 4.1.3 and 4.1.5 or it's letters - that I can see.

Where did you save your OpenOffice files? If they were in your Documents folder where they should be, then the files should have been saved. It wouldn't matter if the OpenOffice program was deleted. Program files and user files should never be comingled by the user.

[jeff1]

Many thanks for all the contributions, the assistance has been much appreciated. I ended up downloading Recuva - which located some files even though it said they were unrecoverable, but unfortunately this did not retrieve the OpenOffice letters. The Microsoft assistant 'accidentally it seems' deleted the documents folder when re-installing the updated version of Windows 10, so no go there. It's a shame there are no 'tools' in OpenOffice to retrieve them. I obviously should have saved the letters in a cloud storage system instead of just on the computer. I've decided to go no further in my attempts to recover the letters, but thank all those again for contributing.

[RoryOF]

When files are deleted from a hard disk, their directory entry is deleted, but the text of the file is left on the disk. Because there is no directory entry, it cannot be found. Recuva and similar applications find the deleted directory entry, analyse what there is of it and rebuild it.

However, if before Recuva is run, the computer is used - in particular for extensive use, such as reinstallation of Windows, the "empty" directory entries are used and it may be that the areas of the hard disk which appear to be blank are used - the blank areas are those that have no directory entry pointing to them. Although they may be occupied by your deleted file(s) the directory entries do not show them to be in use and the text area can be overwritten. So recovery of such overwritten deleted files is almost impossible - forensic applications may do so, but that costs $$$$s.

[RoryOF]

It is advisable to have backups of any serious work; a plug in USB drive costs $50 or so, and will hold years of work. The only problem is adopting the discipline to backup your important work to the USB drive regularly,