Everything has turned into hashtags!

[AndersA]

Please help, near panic here. I use OO´s spreadsheet to keep track of all assignments i´ve done (works as freelance photographer), which at the same time is the way by which I´m able to find specific images in my archive. Today, first I got a message that two different versions of the spreadsheet existed, and was asked which one to keep. I kept the latest one, whereafter I was asked about Ascii filter options, and choose the selected one which was Unicode UTF-8, new times roman and Swedish. I froze in horror when the document opened and all there is is thousands of hashtags. Every single word and number, gone. I quickly tried opening it on my laptop instead, same thing there. Changed to western europe, apple macintosh. same thing.
What is wrong? How can it be retrieved? Please, please help!

[RoryOF]

Your file is damaged, beyond repair, and will have no useful content. Download and run PhotoRec, let it find temporary files, which you should then rename these to type .ods, It is possible that you may not find any useful information.

This type of damage to files is often caused by over-hasty powering down of the computer or closing the lid of a laptop, before the essential housekeeping has been written to disk from the internal buffers in the hard drive. To minimise its chance of happening, it is best to use the formal computer shutdown procedure, then wait a few seconds for all disk activity to cease.

It can also occur when copying files from a computer to an external device such as a USB stick, if the correct USB removal protocols are not observed.

Providing the few extra seconds needed to give file integrity will be much less stressful than the time and effort needed to repair, or more likely, to rebuild, a damaged file.

[AndersA]

It´s all very weird cause I have not shut down the computer in any hastly way. I tried downloading photorec, but it just said "no hard drive found", so didn´t know what to do after that.

[John_Ha]

Your only hope is to see [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for

a) 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;

b) how to find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;

c) 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 and is probably your best hope.

[AndersA]

Hi again,
and thanks for your help. I couldn´t find any temporary files, so downloaded testdisk, but when started it just said it couldn´t find any hard drives. So now what? the other rescue program seems to work on pc only.

[RoryOF]

PhotoRec and TestDisk should run on Macs, but you need to download the correct versions.