Destroyed legal document

[holli]

I have been working on a legal document that was supposed to be filed today. My screen went white. Had to turn computer off. when i turned it back on, I went back to my document and it pulled up as a bunch of # signs. I went to back up and the document was not there even though the document is saved every minute. HELP!!!!!!!

[FJCC]

If the document is all # signs, it is completely corrupted. See this tutorial for help in recovering a temporary version. Take action right away to maximize the chance that an old version is still recoverable.

[robleyd]

Please see [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to #### and [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files

Do this as soon as possible so deleted files don't get over written.

Also, consider installing and using the Time stamped backup extension to provide you with a series of backups for your important work.

[John_Ha]

Your only hope is to see [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO 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 AOO 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.

[Lupp]

Alas! The "s saved every minute" is a misunderstanding. Actually the option is named "Save AutoRecovery information every ... Minutes". If a failing system makes unavoidable a hard restart, the AOO has no power to make sure the AutoRecovery information is not spoiled. The option is mainly to enable AOO to recover a document if the problem was caused by AOO itself while a core of the program still was working.

If you actually saved the document and continued to work on it then, the saved version should be accessible from its location in the file system. The version previous to that state should be saved with the changed extension .bak then in the backup folder of your user profile (not in any backup folder probably created by the system) if you enabled the respective option.

[RoryOF]

If your document was sent you by email, you should be able to open the email and Save the document to the local hard disk. This at least will give you a starting point, although you will have to redo any edits you have made.

[John_Ha]

My screen went white. Had to turn computer off.

Your PC crashed and therefore AOO was forcibly stopped without properly saving the file.

If you created the document and you had never saved it before your PC crashed and you did not have AutoRecovery switched on there is no hope of recovering anything as nothing was written to disk. Your document would have been held in memory and when the PC crashed the contents of memory were lost.

... even though the document is saved every minute. HELP!!!!!!!

If you enabled AutoRecovery by Tools > Options > Load/Save > General > tick SaveAutoRecovery information, then AOO will have saved AutoRecovery information. Read [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files to find what these AutoRecovery files are named and where they are saved. It says:

If ... you were editing fred.odt, look in C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user\backup\ for fred.odt_0.odt. This is the file as it was when it was last saved by AutoRecovery. You could also look for deleted versions. " xxxxxx " here and below is your username on your PC.

If ... you were editing fred.doc, look in C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user\backup\ for fred.doc_0.odt. This is the file as it was when it was last saved by AutoRecovery. You could also look for deleted versions. " xxxxxx " here and below is your username on your PC.

If you do not have the PC skills to follow the instructions in the tutorial ask someone to assist you. With reasonable luck you should be able to recover much of your file.