Corrupted file

[intotheblue99]

Open Office 3.1 on Windows 10. File open when computer crashed. The file that was in use at the time is the only one not restored, and now appears to be corrupt. Forty pages of ##################. Any ideas for recovery possibility?

No backup copy found. No temp file found. Importing corrupt file into new file, or new program version (4.1), doesn't help.

Default setting is to save no backup copies???? What is the logic in that??

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

See: [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####.
Good luck.

I think there was a rationale for not making the backup setting a default but don't remember exactly what it is. Not sure if the backup is encrypted when the original file is also encrypted and if it was linked to that.

[RoryOF]

Also, remember the history: OpenOffice derived from StarOffice in days when disk space was at a premium (a big disk might be 20 or 40 MBytes), and programmers were slow to clutter disks with backups that quickly became out of date.

[intotheblue99]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Regarding the default setting for backups, I can understand what you say about the history, but I just downloaded the 4.1.6 version and it's still the default to not save any backups. If the program is being improved by newer versions, shouldn't saving backups be the default in an era where we all have gigabyte and terabyte drives, and text files usually contain simply a few thousand bytes, maybe a megabyte? Who is upgrading the versions?

Regarding the corrupt content, thanks for referral to the prior hash tag discussion. It appears I've tried everything there except the disk recovery software, so I guess I'll have to look into that.

Unless any other ideas come up from anyone else. Thanks

[John_Ha]

More options are given in [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions on how to

a) use Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file (is there something similar on MacOS and Linux?);

b) recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery;

c) find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;

d) find any temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file but which have not yet been deleted;

e) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. d) and e) will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

If you cannot follow the instructions ask someone with more PC skills to help you. Act quickly - the longer you wait the more likely any temporary files are to be deleted.

[intotheblue99]

Thank you for the link to the tutorial to find and un-delete AOO temporary files. I had already looked for the temp files right away and found none. However, I haven't yet looked into "hidden" files yet, didn't realize there were hidden files, so will do that. Just waiting first for the system to copy all files to a external drive after turning on File History, which was off.