Computer power cut off document corrupted

[josambs]

hello,

this is quite urgent. i wrote my dissertation when the power got cut. openofficewriter tried to recover the document and thena skd me for ascii filter options. whatever i choose, all i get is a document with endless pages of hash signs. any way of recovering that document? happy for ANY recommendations

thx a lot!

j

[therabi]

Search this forum and you will find that there is no way to recover the file. Why do people depend so much on machines? A machine only does what it is instructed to do, the person behind the machine has the take some credit/blame for problems.

Backup often, backup to external drives, backup to remote sites. If it is important make a backup.

The only hope you have is that if you have Auto Backup turned on that there is a good copy. Look at Tools> Options> OpenOffice.org> Paths> Backup to see where it maybe on your computer.

[josambs]

should i say thank you or what do u expect?

[therabi]

I do not "expect" anything. If your real lucky then the file is there and usable. I have made a suggestion for this type of problem but got no where with it. There is an extension that if it had a modification would work wonders, if used properly. The developer wanted to know how much I would pay to have it done. The only option for anyone is as I stated about.

I wish you all the luck.

[aqualung]

hello,

this is quite urgent. i wrote my dissertation when the power got cut. openofficewriter tried to recover the document and thena skd me for ascii filter options. whatever i choose, all i get is a document with endless pages of hash signs. any way of recovering that document? happy for ANY recommendations

thx a lot!

j

josambs,

The chances that your document is recoverable are indeed slim.

There are many tales of woe similar to yours on this forum. See, for example, http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... =6&t=17677

One user in this thread reported good results from using Recuva:

I had the same problem and couldn't locate any temporary files, and followed everything i found on google, including the rename to zip, temp files.... blah blah. The only thing that worked for me was using "recuva" a freeware undelete utlility by piriform and enabled "deep scan" . It found the same .odt file from the day before (in the same location as the newly fudged one) and successfully recovered it. no more pound signs.....

So (no guarantee that it will help!) visit this page, download Recuva Portable (second download link on the page) to an external memory device (i.e., flash memory / thumb drive) if your document was saved to your hard disk drive. (However, if your document was saved to an external drive then don't save the download to the same external device but to a different one.)

You may need to check "Save settings to .INI file" (or similar) during Recuva's installation. Then perform a deep scan to search for your lost file (this may take longer than an hour). The chances, as I said, are slim. They increase somewhat if you have not restarted the computer or performed much work since your file was lost. The reason for that is that deleted or "lost" files do not just disappear: the data that had been written to the sectors of the file will often still be there and only the entries in the file allocation table pointing to them have been overwritten by the operating system. In the interval between the sectors being declared "O.K. to write on" and new data actually being written to them, it may be possible to recover the file.

(Even if a file is not recoverable, specialized forensics software may be able to retrieve much of the content in non-contiguous chunks from the hard disk, but I do not know enough about this market to make a recommendation.)

Good luck, and remember to back up early and often in the future!

[josambs]

thx for your advice, as u predicted i couldnt recover or open the file. had to retype.
thx anyways dudes x

[TheGurkha]

So (no guarantee that it will help!) visit this page, download Recuva Portable (second download link on the page) to an external memory device (i.e., flash memory / thumb drive) if your document was saved to your hard disk drive. (However, if your document was saved to an external drive then don't save the download to the same external device but to a different one.)

Sadly, none of this is liable to help. This sort of recovery program is useful for files that are lost as a result of hard disk issues or being deleted in error. The files in the cases that get reported here are available (not lost on the disk), but they are overwritten internally with # marks.

[aqualung]

What about the report from a user who "had the same problem and .... the only thing that worked for me was using 'recuva' .... It found the same .odt file from the day before (in the same location as the newly fudged one) and successfully recovered it. no more pound signs....." ?

[un-pogo]

The post which suggested using Recuva software is helpful. Add this: If the text file that you've created is recent, using Recuva will, using deep scan, retrieve "deleted" files; the superficial scan will probably not be helpful. You can then check files that are recoverable, which will be mostly only the most recent, click on "Recover" and those files will be restored in a folder of your designation. I just used Recuva and regained about 3 hours of work ... intact; the file was sent into the ASCII abyss, but is now back it belongs.

If you have no backup devices, an easy method is to attach your important text files to an e-mail and send it to yourself. The attached file is backed up in your e-mail provider's cloud, easily downloaded by you to yourself. Alternatively, you can copy the entire text file to a new e-mail and save that e-mail to "Drafts"; same thing, just a tad faster. Most providers now have unlimited storage and, therefore, you have unlimited backup space.

[malorimer]

Wow! this happened to me too, I was opening the file, and my computer locked up. I was reading on here and tried some different stuff. I thought it was hopeless.
In Windows 7 What I found to work was:
Goto the File location - Right Click On The File > Restore Previous Session .... Windows searched for a bit and Then found files from the last time I saved it.

Praise the Lord!

[Bill]

Wow! this happened to me too, I was opening the file, and my computer locked up. I was reading on here and tried some different stuff. I thought it was hopeless.
In Windows 7 What I found to work was:
Goto the File location - Right Click On The File > Restore Previous Session .... Windows searched for a bit and Then found files from the last time I saved it.

Praise the Lord! :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo:

That should work on all versions of Windows 7 and the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista. On the home versions of Vista, previous versions of a file can be recovered using Shadow Explorer:

Recover Files with Shadow Copies on Any Version of Windows Vista