Excel file disappeared, any ideas?

Factual Questions
1

At work here, we have all our order guides on a single excell workbook. It’s gone. They worked on it as recently as yesterday, and today the only sign I see of it is a tmp file with a similar name.

I’ve done the obvious poking around, looking at files created or modified in the last day or two. I’ve run a search for the file name, for part of the file name, and for a word I KNOW is in the file. I’ve done this on all three computers that access that file. Also, on the computer that the file is on I ran a program called Recuva and it didn’t find anything.
And before you ask, I have a backup from a year ago, so it’s not a total loss, but still a bit of work.

Oh, one more thing, the file is an excel file (XLS), but two of the computers that access it are running OO Calc. Also, one of the computers (not the one the file resides on) found a backup that calc made from two months ago, so hopefully I can open that.

Anyways, anythoughts on why a fill would just cease to exist. I do find it very odd that the temp file is there, I’m wondering if excel screwed up when it was closing one day. Is there a way to restore it from the temp file?

2

Sometimes the server doesn’t permanently delete files until it’s running its normal maintenance cycle, so if you have an IT person, or someone who services your system, it might be prudent to call on them. If the file was deleted or otherwise lost in the ether, it might be recoverable.

Someone may have saved the file under the other format and replaced the xls file. Did you check for that?

Lastly, whether you recover the file or not, since other people can control what happens to the file, save a copy on your hard drive at least every time you access the file. At least if it happens again, you won’t have to recreate your own work.

[QUOTE=Joey P]
At work here, we have all our order guides on a single excell workbook. It’s gone. They worked on it as recently as yesterday, and today the only sign I see of it is a tmp file with a similar name.

I’ve done the obvious poking around, looking at files created or modified in the last day or two. I’ve run a search for the file name, for part of the file name, and for a word I KNOW is in the file. I’ve done this on all three computers that access that file. Also, on the computer that the file is on I ran a program called Recuva and it didn’t find anything.
And before you ask, I have a backup from a year ago, so it’s not a total loss, but still a bit of work.

Oh, one more thing, the file is an excel file (XLS), but two of the computers that access it are running OO Calc. Also, one of the computers (not the one the file resides on) found a backup that calc made from two months ago, so hopefully I can open that.

Anyways, anythoughts on why a fill would just cease to exist. I do find it very odd that the temp file is there, I’m wondering if excel screwed up when it was closing one day. Is there a way to restore it from the temp file?
[/QUOTE]

3

I should clarify this real quick, it’s just a file located on someones computer and two other computers regularly access it, no server, no IT guy (well, me I guess).

4

bump

5

Try installing google desktop and searching from there. I found a lost file that way that didn’t come up when I used other search methods.

6

Look for a file that is the same name as the Excel file, but with the extension .ods or .sxc - it’s very possible that one of the Open Office guys saved it in the native Open Office format - forgot to change the save format to .xls - does that help?

7

do a search for the name of the file. I work on large data volumes, and can’t tell you the number of times that a file has been accidentally dropped into a different folder. I’ve even done it myself, and I know better.

If it’s via a network drive, and was deleted, it’s gone. The files don’t go into a recycle bin when accessed/removed via a network share.

8

Still no luck. Even running recovery programs. I do have Norton Ghost which images the entire drive every night. Unfortunely it only keeps two days worth of backups and I didn’t know about the problem until 3 days later :smack: :smack: :smack:

So next I’m going to attemt to recover one of the older backups and see if I can extract it from there.

9

Have you tried renaming the .tmp file to .xls?

10

[QUOTE=robcaro]
Have you tried renaming the .tmp file to .xls?
[/QUOTE]

Well hot damn, send me a bill.