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Thread: MS Word

  1. #1

    MS Word

    Yeah hi, a friend just called me and she typed a 6 page paper and open a blank document to write the works cited page and accidently saved the works cited over the 6 page paper, now i told her to make a couple of copies but is there any way to recover the paper ? Any software that can do that ? Or is there another temp copy of the paper saved ?!?!

    Thanks.
    O.G at A.O

  2. #2
    ********** |ceWriterguy
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    once word has been closed there is no longer a temp copy, and once you've saved over the original it's irretrievable. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. Did she have a hardcopy printed she can at least manually recover from?
    Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.

    Which coder said that nobody could outcode Microsoft in their own OS? Write a bit and make a fortune!

  3. #3
    No she used online sources and her head to type it lol. Oh well, i told her to make multiple copies next time. Funny thing is she blames Microsoft hahaha
    O.G at A.O

  4. #4
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Well,

    The first thing to do is to get her to go into Word and change the options so that it automatically saves and that it automatically makes a backup. When you close your document it will create a copy as a .bak file. The auto save will do a save every "x" minutes that you specify, I would recommend 10 but if I have done something complex I do a manual one in between by clicking the green floppy disc icon on the toolbar.



    PS might be worth checking to see if the backup option was turned on.............it should be a .bak extension file with the same name as the .doc one

  5. #5
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    I think the AutoSave function is on by default ("allow background saves") - that's not going to help if you saved a blank document over an existing document, though (it's kinda hard to do that anyways... it asks for confirmation and even gives you the option to save under another file name). The "always create backup" option is indeed the only option that would have saved your friend (the back-up files are named "Backup of [i]workbook name[]i.wbk", btw). If that option wasn't turned on (it probably wasn't), there's not much your friend can do...

  6. #6
    ********** |ceWriterguy
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    Even if the backup function was active, it's possible considering the lengths of most 'works cited' pages and the average typing speed that it was overwritten by autosave anyway, but there's always that snippet of chance. I didn't even think of it - thanks Nihil. She'll spend more time hunting for the backup than she will retyping it though, plus she won't learn as good a lesson about overwriting files
    Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.

    Which coder said that nobody could outcode Microsoft in their own OS? Write a bit and make a fortune!

  7. #7
    AO übergeek phishphreek's Avatar
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    READ THIS WHOLE POST FIRST BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING I RECOMMEND.

    If you have the same document that she typed over... do this:

    Open Word. Then click file, open and for file type, choose "recover text from any file (*.*)

    Then open the document that she saved over. Without much luck... you'll have *some* of her paper still there.

    It is also possible to search the hard drive and recover temporary files. The temporary files for word are normally something like ~filename.doc and they are in the same directory that the file is saved in. When you close word, it will "erase" them. But... as we know... they are not *really* gone.

    Use the program I attach. Let it search the whole hard drive and then sort the files by date. Look for temporary files around the time she fux0rd the doc. Then recover them to a flash drive or floppy. DO NOT SAVE THEM TO THE HARD DRIVE as you can overwrite what you are trying to recovery.

    NOTE: if possible, use the program from a removable media. there is no install for it. Just extract to a floppy and run it from there. You don't want to extract to your hard drive because you can overwrite the temporary file.

    As a matter of fact... try not to do anything on the PC before you try to recover. Your temp files could overwrite the deleted files. If you have to... power off the box and mount it read only slave in another box to try your recovery. If you can't do that... not to worry.

    I've restored files that people deleted *months* back while the pc gets used daily for 8-12 hrs/day. I'm still wondering how the OS didn't overwrite those files... huh

    There are better recovery programs... but this is the only freeware one I've used sucessfully time and time again. I've got better... but can't share my license.

    Or as others have said... 6 pages isn't really that much. You could let her learn her lesson... or make a deal with her... dinner anyone? is she cute?
    Quitmzilla is a firefox extension that gives you stats on how long you have quit smoking, how much money you\'ve saved, how much you haven\'t smoked and recent milestones. Very helpful for people who quit smoking and used to smoke at their computers... Helps out with the urges.

  8. #8
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hi Phish, that is a nice thought, but obviously depends on the version of Word she is using. That option is not available for Word 8 (Office97) for example.

    On the other hand, if she opens the document and goes into <tools> then takes the <track changes> option, that should show what she overwrote?

    just a thought?




  9. #9
    Well in the time i reinstalled WindowsXP on my cousins PC and came back to check th thread she left me a message that she retyped the paper.....thanks for the replies anyways, good thread.

    is she cute?
    Out of 10 ? 7
    O.G at A.O

  10. #10
    AO Ancient: Team Leader
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    You could also have checked if she had Track Changes on. If she did then the entire document is still held in the original.... it's a nice little forensics thing if Track Changes are on.... Everything ever typed in there are available to anyone with a text editor....
    Don\'t SYN us.... We\'ll SYN you.....
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