File Recovery (im desperate for help.)

[RichardFong]

hi,

sorry to post here, but im really stuck. Somehting went wrong with our computer and an important Word file was overwritten as a blank page. Is there any way at all to retreive the origional word file, this is very important.

thanks

 

[Mile-O]

Surely your network administrator takes regular snapshots of the server and you can retrieve it through this...

 

[RichardFong]

im not on a network, im on a home PC

 

[Vassago]

Yes! Definitely speak with your system administrator about a back-up!

This definitely brings to mind an important lesson too. You should always keep backups of important documents or your own as well! You never know when this might happen!

 

[RichardFong]

so there is no way to retrive it?

 

[Vassago]

Not without a backup? WHere was the file stored? If it's on a network drive, surely your company takes drive images on a regular basis! Speak with your IT guys and find out!

 

[RichardFong]

as i said before im on a home pc and i havnt got a recent enough backup

 

[Vassago]

What version of Windows are you using? Windows XP has a way to go back to a previous image of your hard drive after every install of a program. Although it's a little risky, if the file is very important, it's worth a shot.

 

[RichardFong]

ive got XP but ther system restore is used to go back to previous settings rather than restore documents.

 

[Vassago]

Yes and no. It actually takes an image of your hard drive after every install. If you go back to an image before the last install you made, you may recover the document you are looking for, even though you may lose stuff as well.

 

[RichardFong]

The XP Restore feature doesnt affect documents, it even says at the start of the restore process. It keeps documents intact therefore won't and doesn't work.

 

[andrewf10]

Youre right, XP doesnt allow you to revert to old versions of documents.

Might be worth going through some of the temp folders as this has gotten me out of serious trouble a few times on a Windows 95 machine. The document wont always have the same name as the one you called it so do a search on all .doc files created or modified during whatever time span.

 

[Meltdown]

Don't know if you've made any progress on this but you might want to try http://excelwordrecovery.com ,they offer free analysis