# AGGGGHHH! Help me recover lost Word doc. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561 "2004-11-25T00:08:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/1 "2004-11-25T00:08:57Z")
I’ve never done this before! I accidentally clicked “No” when asked if I wanted to save a Word document I’d been working on for the last several hours. 1,000 words of text and notes, gone! Is there any way to get it back? I’m running Win 2000, not XP, and I don’t have any system restore or backtrack-type program. Please help me! Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/2 "2004-11-25T00:37:04Z")
Okay, panic’s over, mission accomplished. As Emily Litella said, Never mind. In case you’re curious how I did it, I found out on the MS Knowledge Base that Word periodically saves a file called “Autorecovery of _filename_” in case of power outages or hardware failures. If your machine dies, this file will automatically come up the next time you start the program. But that didn’t apply to me, since I had left the program properly, but stupidly. But I was able to use Norton Unerase to find and restore the erased version of the autorecovery file. Whew! Sorry for the panic attack. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/3 "2004-11-25T01:27:35Z")
Hey, that’s great! Of course, after this, you will train yourself to hit CTRL-S automatically before every pause to think, every trip to the bathroom or fridge, every time you answer the phone . . . Right? _ **RIGHT???** _ ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/4 "2004-11-25T01:30:22Z")
Been there, done that. Just a suggestion to avoid doing it again: Open the file, File|Save As to a new name, do whatever, File|Save or CTRL-S. If you’re working more that a half-hour or so, or are about to do something that might be drastic, Save and Save As again. I like to use sequential numbers: _file_.doc, _file_01.doc, _file_02.doc, … When you get too many copies, delete all but the two or three newest ones. Never trust computers. Never trust software. Never trust yourself. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/5 "2004-11-25T02:37:55Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Hey, that’s great! > > Of course, after this, you will train yourself to hit CTRL-S automatically before every pause to think, every trip to the bathroom or fridge, every time you answer the phone . . . > > Right? _ **RIGHT???** _ Why should I? Now I know how to undo my stupidity. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/6 "2004-11-25T16:00:00Z")
Glad you managed. When I type something big, I reflexively hit control-S every time I pause, get up, or whatever. Don’t risk losing more than thirty seconds of work if your computer dies or power goes out or something. That’s a really stupid risk; besides, there’s no way to accidentally hit no. We all do stupid things from time to time, but if you plan for them, you can diminish their impact. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/7 "2004-11-25T17:07:06Z")
Whaddya mean there’s no way to accidentally hit No? If you’re closing a bunch of windows quickly and most of them are things you don’t want to save, hitting No on the one you \*do \*want to save (perhapd because you forgot that it was still open) is quite easy! I’m living proof of that! It’s just that in more than two decades of working with computers, I’ve never had exactly this problem before. In other programs I use there’s either an auto-save feature, or I’ve gotten in the habit of saving. For instance when posting to the SDMB in the mid-afternoon, I now routinely hit CRTL-A, CTRL-C before hitting the Preview or Submit buttons, because I’ve learned from hard experience that the hamsters are straining at that time of day and can easily wipe out an hour’s composition in a nanosecond. But in all the time I’ve been using Word, I’d never done this. But I’ll probably try to get in the habit you suggest from now on. As Ed Howe said, a good scare is worth more to a man than good advice! Thanks again, all. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agggghhh-help-me-recover-lost-word-doc/276561/8 "2004-11-25T17:17:10Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > Whaddya mean there’s no way to accidentally hit No? If you’re closing a bunch of windows quickly and most of them are things you don’t want to save, hitting No on the one you \*do \*want to save (perhapd because you forgot that it was still open) is quite easy! I’m living proof of that! I think **Excalibre** meant that if you hit CTRL S every so often there’s no way to accidentally screw things up by hitting “No”. Glad you got the file back, anyhow. Not all of MS Word’s trillion features are entirely useless…