As I mentioned in another thread, I am in the middle of a large research paper. I just discovered that the work I did last night was not saved in my Word document. I have no idea what happened, but my only guess is that when it asked me if I wanted to save changes, I accidentally said no. Anyone know how I can get the backup version of the document? Please help!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you will only have a backup copy if you saved the document. Go to Tools,Options,Save and check whether you have ticked Always create backup copy and Save AutoRecover info every: for future reference.
If you have created a backup it will be in the same folder as the original. Just choose Files of type:All Files in File,Open. The backup will be a Microsoft Word Backup Document.
Good Luck.
Well, I’m losing my mind here. First, I can’t imagine how I managed to shut down my computer without saving it. And it appears that it was not set to save a backup, although I swear I set it to when I bought this computer. I lost a document at work once and discovered that no one had set it to save a backup, so I’ve been careful to check the settings of any computer I’ve worked on. No one else has ever used my computer, so it must be that I’m losing my mind.
It was set to Autorecover every 3 minutes. Isn’t that file somewhere in my computer? I mean, the FBI could find it, right?
When you have a document open, in Explorer it creates a dummy file with a ~ in front of it, like ~document.doc. (I don’t know the tech term for it, though.)
I guess you did a systemwide search using wildcards? Like docu*.doc? or even document.*?
In Word the AutoRecovery feature stores a file called AutoRecovery save of… in your Temp folder (in your Windows folder usually). When you save the document or exit Word these files are deleted. Presumably a good undelete utility would be able to locate the deleted file.
Unfortunately Word’s AutoRecover is not an AutoSave function and only works when Word terminates abnormally.
Unfortunately, the document doesn’t seems to be lost, it never got saved in the first place. In other words, there’s nothing to recover.
Last Resort:
Go to the start menu and do a text search for a unique string in your document.
Maybe, just maybe it’ll be there.
Or: Maybe you saved it to a DEFAULT directory.
In any case, the FIND thing will find all occurances on your HD of the file.
(Search by interior TEXT, not title!)