EMERGENCY!! FILE RECOVERY HELP

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Guest

Help! My son emailed himself the very beginning of his term paper from
school. He opened the email and began working on the term paper and saved
it. He continued to do the same for about 7 days. 1st problem is that he
never saved it to his documents, he kept saving it to the temporary internet
file. Today he went to pull the file up and it is not there. I'm not sure
what happened, but he didn't save it to a safe place or a place I back up.

I'm not sure the autobackup was ever turned on on his computer. If it was
where would the auto backup be stored? He did it in Word 2002, Office
Professional. Does anyone know anywhere else the system might have stored a
copy? I've looked in the recycle bin, not there.

Another draft due tomorrow and of course he has no print out in past week.

Thanks in advance!

Meg
 
If the document was never saved in a document folder, it's gone.
AutoRecovery backups are useful only if Word hangs or the system crashes.
See http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
There is an outside possibility that file recovery software *may* be able to
recover the now deleted temporary file from the user temp folder, but use
your computer rather than his to download it, stop all further work on his
PC until you have made the attempt, and most important of all, discourage
the practice of opening e-mail attachments directly. *ALWAYS* save to the
hard drive first.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
One other option-

If your email client is not set to delete messages on the server when you
delete them locally, access your email account through your ISP's email
feature. The message may still be stored there, including the attachment.
Unfortunately any changes will be lost, but at least the original may be
available.

It also seems like if he did 'Save" as he worked, the doc has to be stored
someplace. Have you tried using the Windows Search for Files & Folders
feature?

HTH |:>)


There is an outside possibility that file recovery software *may* be able to
recover the now deleted temporary file from the user temp folder, but use
your computer rather than his to download it, stop all further work on his
PC until you have made the attempt, and most important of all, discourage
the practice of opening e-mail attachments directly. *ALWAYS* save to the
hard drive first.
Click to expand...

-- (e-mail address removed)
 
Having done some experimenting with this, I think it extremely unlikely that
either suggestion would work. The files do not exist as true files (at least
not with Windows XP/Outlook 2003) and the 'folder' they are contained in
does not exist in the filing system, but the file *may* still be available
in the volatile internet temporary file area - the trick is to access it.

It seems that if the document (any document) is opened again directly from
an e-mail message the pseudo 'folder' becomes the focus for Word. If you
then select file > open while that document is still open, all the documents
stored in the temp 'folder' are displayed. The missing document may
therefore still be accessible :) If it is, open the document and save it in
a true folder.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
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