[Solved] Corrupt File Recovery!

[MelissaMelissa]

So I am a writer in my free time and I was seventeen pages into my story when my laptop suddenly crashed. Usually when it restarts itself, OpenOffice Writer usually recovers the document on its own. This time it didn't. So for the past two and a half days I've been trying to find a solution as I absolutely do not want to lose my writing, my memory is incredibly bad so there isn't much hope of me writing it again.
I've tried the Zip thing, I've tried searching for a backup (apparently my OpenOffice doesn't create backups and I can't find the box to turn it on.) And I've tried SysinfoTools Writer File Repair v2.0, but none of them helped. The latter told me that the 'repair process was completed succesfully', but when I try to save it, it says 'repair process aborted'. I had to use Advanced Mode because Standard Mode refused to work and told me to use the other option instead.
So far the closest I've gotten to retrieve the lost pages is through Active@ File Recovery, but due to limited time I was unable to finish the process and attempted to save the scan as the program offered me to. When I tried to find the missing pages today, I got other pharagraphs I had been working on, but the ones I found earlier didn't show up anymore. Does that mean they are permanentely deleted?
Also, when I first tried opening the document it said "Document not open for editing by: Unknown User" with the only options being "Read-only copy", "copy" and "cancel". When I try to look at the copy all I get are pages filled with "##################################################".
My OpenOffice version is version 4.1.1. I have Windows 8 and a Toshiba laptop.

Please tell me someone has a solution. It was a gift for a friend of mine and I've been working on it for longer than a week now.

[acknak]

So sorry. If all you see are #s and no other characters, then there is no recoverable data in the document.

The best you can do is go to a backup file, or possibly recover a leftover temporary copy in the OO temp folder (it will have a random name).

[MelissaMelissa]

So sorry. If all you see are #s and no other characters, then there is no recoverable data in the document.

The best you can do is go to a backup file, or possibly recover a leftover temporary copy in the OO temp folder (it will have a random name).

There is no backup file, unfortunatly. But when I used Active@ File Recovery, I do recover some of the lost pages.

[Hagar Delest]

Sadly, quite nothing to do I fear, see: 22 pages term paper replaced with pound signs.

Check the temporary folder of the system (see in OO Tools>Options>OO>Paths). If there are folders like sgmlf.tmp with a file having the same name inside, make a copy of that file, rename it in .odt and cross your fingers.

If you want to help fix this problem, you can also do this survey created for this very problem: Document Recovery Survey.

[MelissaMelissa]

It's not needed anymore. I managed to recover sixteen and a half pages, the rest I can just write down again.
Thank you for your help! ^^

[Hagar Delest]

Great you're very lucky!
So backup and in 2 places if possible!

[MelissaMelissa]

I have created a backup and created backups for my other writings too! ^^

[jrkrideau]

Hi MM,
You might also want to look into Dropbox as a backup idea. I keep a few very difficult-to-replace in a dropbox folder plus making backups Paranoia is good