Corrupted .odt file - help please

[kevinabrownlee]

Hello - The attached file has a paper my daughter write for school. It is corrupted and opens with ASCII filter options dialogue box. I am trying to repair the file or simply recover the text. If anyone could help, it would be greatly appreciated - as my daughters paper is due tomorrow.

[robleyd]

As soon as possible do the following:

Download Recuva (Windows only) or PhotoRec for Win, MacOS, Linux and other OSes (only one needed) and let it do an in-depth 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.

Meanwhile I'll have a look at your document but I don't expect there'll be anything to recover.

[robleyd]

Unfortunately the .odt file is sufficiently corrupted that I can't unzip it to try and look at the contents; even zip's repair feature throws its hands in the air. I hope file recovery software will find something for you. If you have Always create a backup copy turned on in Tools | Options | Load/Save | General | Save you might find something in your backup directory (see Tools | Options | OpenOffice | Paths)

[RoryOF]

I could get nothing from it.

See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for detailed instructions on how to recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery.

You may also find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted.

There are also detailed instructions for how to un-delete the temporary files Writer wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted - this will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.