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Lost document
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:14 pm
by nikkihiggins1
Help! I lost a very important document. When I try to open it, a box opens that says "ASCII Filter Options". When I think I chose the correct filter, a bunch of #### show up. I have tried numerous times and numerous options. Please let me know if you've seen this before and how I can try to recover it. It was in RTF. Thank you!
Re: lost document
Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 10:23 pm
by RoryOF
Your file is badly damaged, probably beyond useful repair.
As soon as possible do the following:
Download Recuva or PhotoRec (only one needed) and let it do an indepth recovery of deleted files on your computer. You may get a file containing some or all of your data (or not). Do this as a first priority; other use of the computer may overwrite any existing but deleted files and prevent their recovery. There is no guarantee that you will recover anything useful.
Do the above soonest! Do not wait for anything else - there is little prospect of recovering anything from your file, so do this NOW!
Re: Lost document
Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 1:20 pm
by Hagar Delest
See:
[Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####.
Good luck.
Do you still use OOo 3.1 (your signature)?
I hope you had backups.
Re: Lost document
Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:03 pm
by neuropiggy
I believe something happened with OO between March 7-9, because there are three posts with similar complaints, and I too lost an important file to ### on March 7
Re: Lost document
Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:59 pm
by John_Ha
See
[Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for instructions on how to identify and un-delete the temporary files Writer wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. You should be able to recover your file as it was when you last opened it or as it was when last saved with AutoRecovery. You may also find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located but which have since been deleted.
Re: Lost document
Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 5:01 pm
by John_Ha
neuropiggy wrote:I believe something happened with OO between March 7-9, because there are three posts with similar complaints, and I too lost an important file to ### on March 7
That is not the case. It is just that it unfortunately happened to you, and also unfortunately happened to other people - there are millions of users. Nothing in AOO changed around that date.
Re: Lost document
Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 5:03 pm
by RoryOF
neuropiggy wrote:I believe something happened with OO between March 7-9, because there are three posts with similar complaints, and I too lost an important file to ### on March 7
These occurrences are coincidence; there are no, repeat _NO_, secret OpenOffice upgrades. It is most likely these corrupted files were caused through improper closure of the OO files or over-hasty close down of the computer before the essential housekeeping information had been written to disk from the hardware/software write buffers.