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Crashed files with ####

Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 8:22 am
by canopus22991
Hi

I have a problem with Open Office Writer file (*.odt).
The content of the file has been replaced with "#" marks (in hex editor it is "00 00 00 00").

Is there any way to recover the file, or at least one of its earlier versions?

I checked folders:
C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user\backup
and
C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Temp

The file is not there.

I tried software such as "Recuva" and "Open Office Writer Recovery Software".
No success.
I'm using Windows 8.1 and Apache OpenOffice 4.1.1.

Thanks in advance for you help.

Re: crashed files with ####

Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:42 am
by Zizi64
I think: Nothing to do...

I hope you have some previous versions of your document.

Allways make more than one backup (with different filenames) of your important documents onto more than one (different type) media.

Re: crashed files with ####

Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:56 pm
by jrkrideau
As Tibor says, you're out of luck. See 22 pages term paper replaced with pound signs for more details.

Re: crashed files with ####

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:16 pm
by John_Ha
canopus22991 wrote:Is there any way to recover the file, or at least one of its earlier versions?
If you are lucky, you might be able to un-delete some of the temporary files which Writer wrote while you were editing the .odt file, and then deleted when you closed Writer. Act quickly - they risk being overwritten the longer you leave it. Note that this only works if you were editing a .odt file - it does not work if you were editing a .doc file.

Using RECUVA to un-delete Writer temporary files which are now deleted

Another on RECUVA

These may also be helpful.

Using 7-ZIP

Inside an odt file

Hints on how to prevent it happening

Always set AutoRecovery to save a copy of the file every few minutes while you are working on it - it protects you against things like power cuts, OS freezes etc. Tools > Options > Load/Save > General ...

Always?? set Create a backup copy to ON - this keeps the previously saved version of the file fred.odt as fred.bak in the Backup folder. Tools > Options > Load/Save > General ... The Backup folder location is shown by Tools > Options > OpenOffice > Paths ... You may need to switch on Show hidden files (Control Panel > Folder Options > View ...) to be able to see the folder and its contents. Why the ??? Because you should remember that highly_personal.bak will still be in the Backup folder long after you have deleted highly_personal.odt!!!