Corrupted File - Please Help

[paley56]

I have a 267+/- page file that is a book, and somehow the file has been corrupted. When I attempt to open it I get the ASCII pop up, and I will then get a series of ########################### for my words. Is there anyone that would be willing to look at the document and fix it? I would be most appreciative!

[RoryOF]

Either your computer crashed, or you powered down your computer before the internal housekeeping had been completed. Your file is corrupted and experience on OpenOffice User Forum indicates that nothing can be recovered from it. However, you may recover some of the temporary files generated in the process of editing. Details are given in this tutorial

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=85038

You should also use a utility such as Recuva which may also find some of these deleted temporary files.

[paley56]

Thank you. I have seen previous posts wherein moderators were able to offer help and recover files. I saw where acnak had done so, just would like help - I am trying what you suggested but this is not my forte. Thank you.

[John_Ha]

I am sorry but when a file opens and shows ########, it means that all data has been lost, and the file is full of NUL (zero) characters, which means there is absolutely no user data in the file. Nothing can be recovered from the file as can be seen from the image below.

The only way to get back the data is to try and recover the now deleted temporary files as described in the Tutorial.

File which opens with ##### characters looks like this in a binary editor.
It is full of NULL or zero characters and there is no user data in it.

This is what a good .odt file looks like in a binary editor.

This is what a good .odt file looks like in a binary editor

[RoryOF]

Thank you. I have seen previous posts wherein moderators were able to offer help and recover files. I saw where acnak had done so, just would like help - I am trying what you suggested but this is not my forte. Thank you.

Recovery of a damaged file is usually when the attempt to open a file results in a message of an internal error, often something like "duplicate attribute at row, column". This is a different situation from a file displaying "######", which is an indication that there is no text in the file. The methods John_Ha and I have indicated are the only way to recover a file in such circumstances; the more use of the computer in the interval since loss of the file, the less chance of any recovery.

Edit: If you have a printout of a partial text, careful use of a scanner and an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program will recreate that section of text.