Finding a backup, previous version, or temp file for Notepad .txt

[hopeful]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me find a previous version of a
document on my desktop. My system is Windows XP, and it is a Notepad .txt
document.

Here is my problem:

I worked in Notepad and created a large document. I saved it and named it,
and then saved it many times throughout working on it. I then left the
project and worked on some other things for a while. I did NOT close the
document (which becomes the problem later). When I came back to the project,
I forgot that I had NOT closed the original document, and went to the folder
it was stored in, and 'opened' it from there. Because there is some type of
bug in Notepad, it will actually open up the document as a second identical
document instead of telling you that it is already open, or instead of
automatically just going to the already-opened document. Thus, I now had two
of the same document open on my desktop.

Because there were a lot of things open on my desktop at the time, I didn't
notice that there were two. (Especially since I had forgotten that I had not
closed it when I left it the first time.) So I thought that the 'second'
copy of the document was the only one, of course, and began to work in it,
adding a tremendous amount of data. I worked in the document through the day
and into the night, and then closed the document as you would normally do.

That of course saved the document correctly, and all would have been fine,
except there was the original/first document (now just a PARTIAL document,
compared to the completed one) sitting there on my desktop, unbeknownst to
me. I didn't shut down the computer, and when I came back to the computer
today I saw the open document and thought to myself "I must be going bananas,
I thought I closed that document when I finished it". I didn't think about
it much more and closed the (original/partial) document.

Later in the day I wanted to edit something in the document, and opened it
via the normal means. To my horror, the document only contained the data in
it from when I had stopped working on it the first time, but had NONE of the
data in it from the long day and night's work.

It seems that although I correctly saved and closed the long (second)
document, it got overwritten by the first (shorter) document when that one
was closed AFTER the second (longer) document was closed. Thus, because it
was closed last, it was interpreted as the latest version of the document.
Of course, it shouldn't have been closed last, but I had no idea that I was
interacting with two different documents at the time, and that a bug making
two copies of the same document was even possible.

So somewhere there (hopefully) is a temp doc (if I'm using that term right)
of the long/second version of the document, from when I saved and closed it,
and from before it got overwritten by the short/first version, when it got
closed last.

Here it is in a nutshell:
1) Created new Notepad .txt document [we'll call it Version A, and estimate
it was 50 pages].
2) Named and saved it correctly.
3) Did NOT close it.
3) Left and came back to work on it.
4) Forgot document was still open (due to many docs open at time), and so
opened it by clicking on it.
5) Due to a bug in Notebook, it opened a second copy, instead of telling me
it was already open.
6) Worked in the second copy [we'll call it Version B, and estimate it at
200 pages], not knowing Version A (50 pgs) was still open.
7) Correctly saved and closed Version B (200 pgs).
8) Next day noticed Version A (50 pgs) still open, but not knowing that it
was Version A, thought that I had forgotten to close Version B.
9) Closed Version A (50 pages), of course thinking there had only been ONE
document, and that is was Version B.
10) Both versions were now closed, though at this point I didn't know there
were two versions.
11) Opened the document to edit it. Document only contained info from
Version A (50 pgs). All of the (additional) work in Version B (originally
200 pgs) was gone.
12) Thus, closing Version A (50 pgs) after Version B (200 pgs) overwrote
Version B with Version A.
13) Version B (200 pgs) had been saved on its own before I closed Version A
(50 pgs), so I know that somewhere there must be a backup version or temp
version of THAT document at THAT time.

Or that is my HOPE.

I am hoping that there is some place that the system stored a copy of the
Notepad .txt document when I saved and closed Version B (200 pgs), (when it
was still fine, and not yet overwritten by Version A.) I am not even sure
about what I am looking for, as I definitely don't know the in's and out's of
my computer. But I am hoping that there are temp files, or some type of
(backup?) file that was created each time I pressed "save". I haven't shut
down the computer since the doc was created, so hopefully no temp files have
been lost yet.

Is there a place on the computer where I could look? As I mentioned, the
document is a Notepad document, with a .txt extension.

Could you teach me about what type of file is generated when you save a
document each time, and where they might be stored? I know there are
specifics related to what program the document is written in -- is anyone
familiar with where Notepad places all of its background files?

This is where I have looked so far -- but there is nothing:
1) The same folder as where the original file is.
2) C:\Documents and Settings\Karen\Local Settings\Temp
3) C:\WINDOWS\Temp
4) C:\temp

Perhaps you could tell me exactly what kind of file I am looking for, as all
the files that are a .txt file are logs, and all of the other temp files are
unopenable by anything. I think there is a lot I still need to be educated
about. Especially when it comes to what Notepad itself does during
saving/backup, etc. I am so thankful for your help!

I have my fingers (very) crossed, as my heart just sunk when I opened up the
document and saw all of the work gone, as all of the information was
important medical information. I'm just so appreciative of being able to
post here! Thank you for your time, and for any information that you might
have in locating a previous version, or a backup, or a temp file, of the
document when it had been saved previously.

Thank you so very much!

Karen

 

[Peter Foldes]

Did you use Save or Save As when you were saving the document as you were working.
If you used Save only then it will not be there and if you used Save As then the
document should still be there

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me find a previous version of a
document on my desktop. My system is Windows XP, and it is a Notepad .txt
document.

Here is my problem:

I worked in Notepad and created a large document. I saved it and named it,
and then saved it many times throughout working on it. I then left the
project and worked on some other things for a while. I did NOT close the
document (which becomes the problem later). When I came back to the project,
I forgot that I had NOT closed the original document, and went to the folder
it was stored in, and 'opened' it from there. Because there is some type of
bug in Notepad, it will actually open up the document as a second identical
document instead of telling you that it is already open, or instead of
automatically just going to the already-opened document. Thus, I now had two
of the same document open on my desktop.

Because there were a lot of things open on my desktop at the time, I didn't
notice that there were two. (Especially since I had forgotten that I had not
closed it when I left it the first time.) So I thought that the 'second'
copy of the document was the only one, of course, and began to work in it,
adding a tremendous amount of data. I worked in the document through the day
and into the night, and then closed the document as you would normally do.

That of course saved the document correctly, and all would have been fine,
except there was the original/first document (now just a PARTIAL document,
compared to the completed one) sitting there on my desktop, unbeknownst to
me. I didn't shut down the computer, and when I came back to the computer
today I saw the open document and thought to myself "I must be going bananas,
I thought I closed that document when I finished it". I didn't think about
it much more and closed the (original/partial) document.

Later in the day I wanted to edit something in the document, and opened it
via the normal means. To my horror, the document only contained the data in
it from when I had stopped working on it the first time, but had NONE of the
data in it from the long day and night's work.

It seems that although I correctly saved and closed the long (second)
document, it got overwritten by the first (shorter) document when that one
was closed AFTER the second (longer) document was closed. Thus, because it
was closed last, it was interpreted as the latest version of the document.
Of course, it shouldn't have been closed last, but I had no idea that I was
interacting with two different documents at the time, and that a bug making
two copies of the same document was even possible.

So somewhere there (hopefully) is a temp doc (if I'm using that term right)
of the long/second version of the document, from when I saved and closed it,
and from before it got overwritten by the short/first version, when it got
closed last.

Here it is in a nutshell:
1) Created new Notepad .txt document [we'll call it Version A, and estimate
it was 50 pages].
2) Named and saved it correctly.
3) Did NOT close it.
3) Left and came back to work on it.
4) Forgot document was still open (due to many docs open at time), and so
opened it by clicking on it.
5) Due to a bug in Notebook, it opened a second copy, instead of telling me
it was already open.
6) Worked in the second copy [we'll call it Version B, and estimate it at
200 pages], not knowing Version A (50 pgs) was still open.
7) Correctly saved and closed Version B (200 pgs).
8) Next day noticed Version A (50 pgs) still open, but not knowing that it
was Version A, thought that I had forgotten to close Version B.
9) Closed Version A (50 pages), of course thinking there had only been ONE
document, and that is was Version B.
10) Both versions were now closed, though at this point I didn't know there
were two versions.
11) Opened the document to edit it. Document only contained info from
Version A (50 pgs). All of the (additional) work in Version B (originally
200 pgs) was gone.
12) Thus, closing Version A (50 pgs) after Version B (200 pgs) overwrote
Version B with Version A.
13) Version B (200 pgs) had been saved on its own before I closed Version A
(50 pgs), so I know that somewhere there must be a backup version or temp
version of THAT document at THAT time.

Or that is my HOPE.

I am hoping that there is some place that the system stored a copy of the
Notepad .txt document when I saved and closed Version B (200 pgs), (when it
was still fine, and not yet overwritten by Version A.) I am not even sure
about what I am looking for, as I definitely don't know the in's and out's of
my computer. But I am hoping that there are temp files, or some type of
(backup?) file that was created each time I pressed "save". I haven't shut
down the computer since the doc was created, so hopefully no temp files have
been lost yet.

Is there a place on the computer where I could look? As I mentioned, the
document is a Notepad document, with a .txt extension.

Could you teach me about what type of file is generated when you save a
document each time, and where they might be stored? I know there are
specifics related to what program the document is written in -- is anyone
familiar with where Notepad places all of its background files?

This is where I have looked so far -- but there is nothing:
1) The same folder as where the original file is.
2) C:\Documents and Settings\Karen\Local Settings\Temp
3) C:\WINDOWS\Temp
4) C:\temp

Perhaps you could tell me exactly what kind of file I am looking for, as all
the files that are a .txt file are logs, and all of the other temp files are
unopenable by anything. I think there is a lot I still need to be educated
about. Especially when it comes to what Notepad itself does during
saving/backup, etc. I am so thankful for your help!

I have my fingers (very) crossed, as my heart just sunk when I opened up the
document and saw all of the work gone, as all of the information was
important medical information. I'm just so appreciative of being able to
post here! Thank you for your time, and for any information that you might
have in locating a previous version, or a backup, or a temp file, of the
document when it had been saved previously.

Thank you so very much!

Karen

 

[hopeful]

Hi Peter,

No, I didn't "save as", since I didn't want (or think there was) more than
one document. The reason there was *two* documents is because the first one
was still open (though I had forgotten it was open) when I clicked on the
document in its folder to open it to work on it again. Notepad seems to have
a bug, because it should have told me that the document was already open, but
instead, it just opened up a second copy. Thus there were two open copies on
my desktop. I didn't realize the first copy was still open, so just began
working in the copy it opened for me. That's the copy I continued doing all
the work in. Then I closed it (the new, second, now much bigger document).
When I came back to the computer and was organizing the docs that were open
for other reasons, I came across the *first* original version. I had NO idea
it was the first copy, as I didn't think a program would erroneously open two
copies of the *same* doc (and I didn't know that it was even going on). So
when I noticed the document, I just assumed I hadn't closed it (which as far
as I knew, was only the one document). But it was actually the first version
that I was closing now, which had much less data in it, since I had worked in
the second version that it had erroneously opened for me. I had correctly
closed that one (the large, second copy), and thought it was the only one.
So when I noticed the document again, all I could assume was that I *hadn't*
really closed it before I left. So when I closed that first/original
document, which was still open, and which was MUCH smaller, it ended up
overwriting the correct/large document, which had already been closed.

So all I did was "save" the documents, not "save as". I know there's not a
second literal document, but since I did "save" the long document many, many
times, I am hoping that there is some type of backup file that was created
during the saving process, or something of that nature. (I'm not sure what
all is possible, as I am so very new to all of this.)

So what I am essentially asking is -- the long version got saved correctly
many times during writing it, and right before the short version got saved
over it. Is there a place where Notepad places backup versions, or temp
files, or files it creates when a "save" is done during writing the document?
Are there any residue (?) files that Notepad creates as the file is worked
on and continuously saved?

Overall, there was almost a full day of my continually "saving" the long
document every hour or so. It was only after it was closed that it was
overwritten by the short/original version, when it (the short version) was
closed. So I am hoping that during the long day of working on the
long/second version, there would have been some files created by Notepad when
I saved it every hour, etc., -- or something similar to that.

Thank you so much for your response!

Karen

Did you use Save or Save As when you were saving the document as you were working.
If you used Save only then it will not be there and if you used Save As then the
document should still be there

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me find a previous version of a
document on my desktop. My system is Windows XP, and it is a Notepad .txt
document.

Here is my problem:

I worked in Notepad and created a large document. I saved it and named it,
and then saved it many times throughout working on it. I then left the
project and worked on some other things for a while. I did NOT close the
document (which becomes the problem later). When I came back to the project,
I forgot that I had NOT closed the original document, and went to the folder
it was stored in, and 'opened' it from there. Because there is some type of
bug in Notepad, it will actually open up the document as a second identical
document instead of telling you that it is already open, or instead of
automatically just going to the already-opened document. Thus, I now had two
of the same document open on my desktop.

Because there were a lot of things open on my desktop at the time, I didn't
notice that there were two. (Especially since I had forgotten that I had not
closed it when I left it the first time.) So I thought that the 'second'
copy of the document was the only one, of course, and began to work in it,
adding a tremendous amount of data. I worked in the document through the day
and into the night, and then closed the document as you would normally do.

That of course saved the document correctly, and all would have been fine,
except there was the original/first document (now just a PARTIAL document,
compared to the completed one) sitting there on my desktop, unbeknownst to
me. I didn't shut down the computer, and when I came back to the computer
today I saw the open document and thought to myself "I must be going bananas,
I thought I closed that document when I finished it". I didn't think about
it much more and closed the (original/partial) document.

Later in the day I wanted to edit something in the document, and opened it
via the normal means. To my horror, the document only contained the data in
it from when I had stopped working on it the first time, but had NONE of the
data in it from the long day and night's work.

It seems that although I correctly saved and closed the long (second)
document, it got overwritten by the first (shorter) document when that one
was closed AFTER the second (longer) document was closed. Thus, because it
was closed last, it was interpreted as the latest version of the document.
Of course, it shouldn't have been closed last, but I had no idea that I was
interacting with two different documents at the time, and that a bug making
two copies of the same document was even possible.

So somewhere there (hopefully) is a temp doc (if I'm using that term right)
of the long/second version of the document, from when I saved and closed it,
and from before it got overwritten by the short/first version, when it got
closed last.

Here it is in a nutshell:
1) Created new Notepad .txt document [we'll call it Version A, and estimate
it was 50 pages].
2) Named and saved it correctly.
3) Did NOT close it.
3) Left and came back to work on it.
4) Forgot document was still open (due to many docs open at time), and so
opened it by clicking on it.
5) Due to a bug in Notebook, it opened a second copy, instead of telling me
it was already open.
6) Worked in the second copy [we'll call it Version B, and estimate it at
200 pages], not knowing Version A (50 pgs) was still open.
7) Correctly saved and closed Version B (200 pgs).
8) Next day noticed Version A (50 pgs) still open, but not knowing that it
was Version A, thought that I had forgotten to close Version B.
9) Closed Version A (50 pages), of course thinking there had only been ONE
document, and that is was Version B.
10) Both versions were now closed, though at this point I didn't know there
were two versions.
11) Opened the document to edit it. Document only contained info from
Version A (50 pgs). All of the (additional) work in Version B (originally
200 pgs) was gone.
12) Thus, closing Version A (50 pgs) after Version B (200 pgs) overwrote
Version B with Version A.
13) Version B (200 pgs) had been saved on its own before I closed Version A
(50 pgs), so I know that somewhere there must be a backup version or temp
version of THAT document at THAT time.

Or that is my HOPE.

I am hoping that there is some place that the system stored a copy of the
Notepad .txt document when I saved and closed Version B (200 pgs), (when it
was still fine, and not yet overwritten by Version A.) I am not even sure
about what I am looking for, as I definitely don't know the in's and out's of
my computer. But I am hoping that there are temp files, or some type of
(backup?) file that was created each time I pressed "save". I haven't shut
down the computer since the doc was created, so hopefully no temp files have
been lost yet.

Is there a place on the computer where I could look? As I mentioned, the
document is a Notepad document, with a .txt extension.

Could you teach me about what type of file is generated when you save a
document each time, and where they might be stored? I know there are
specifics related to what program the document is written in -- is anyone
familiar with where Notepad places all of its background files?

This is where I have looked so far -- but there is nothing:
1) The same folder as where the original file is.
2) C:\Documents and Settings\Karen\Local Settings\Temp
3) C:\WINDOWS\Temp
4) C:\temp

Perhaps you could tell me exactly what kind of file I am looking for, as all
the files that are a .txt file are logs, and all of the other temp files are
unopenable by anything. I think there is a lot I still need to be educated
about. Especially when it comes to what Notepad itself does during
saving/backup, etc. I am so thankful for your help!

I have my fingers (very) crossed, as my heart just sunk when I opened up the
document and saw all of the work gone, as all of the information was
important medical information. I'm just so appreciative of being able to
post here! Thank you for your time, and for any information that you might
have in locating a previous version, or a backup, or a temp file, of the
document when it had been saved previously.

Thank you so very much!

Karen

 

[Roy Smith]

If you only used the 'save' and not the 'save as' and if you were using the
same filename then you were writing over the same file each and every time.
Notepad is just a basic text editor and does not have any backup features
available to it. Now if you had been using a real word processing program
like Word and had autosave turned on, then you would have a backup of your
work.

Hi Peter,

No, I didn't "save as", since I didn't want (or think there was) more than
one document. The reason there was *two* documents is because the first
one
was still open (though I had forgotten it was open) when I clicked on the
document in its folder to open it to work on it again. Notepad seems to
have
a bug, because it should have told me that the document was already open,
but
instead, it just opened up a second copy. Thus there were two open copies
on
my desktop. I didn't realize the first copy was still open, so just began
working in the copy it opened for me. That's the copy I continued doing
all
the work in. Then I closed it (the new, second, now much bigger
document).
When I came back to the computer and was organizing the docs that were
open
for other reasons, I came across the *first* original version. I had NO
idea
it was the first copy, as I didn't think a program would erroneously open
two
copies of the *same* doc (and I didn't know that it was even going on).
So
when I noticed the document, I just assumed I hadn't closed it (which as
far
as I knew, was only the one document). But it was actually the first
version
that I was closing now, which had much less data in it, since I had worked
in
the second version that it had erroneously opened for me. I had correctly
closed that one (the large, second copy), and thought it was the only one.
So when I noticed the document again, all I could assume was that I
*hadn't*
really closed it before I left. So when I closed that first/original
document, which was still open, and which was MUCH smaller, it ended up
overwriting the correct/large document, which had already been closed.

So all I did was "save" the documents, not "save as". I know there's not
a
second literal document, but since I did "save" the long document many,
many
times, I am hoping that there is some type of backup file that was created
during the saving process, or something of that nature. (I'm not sure
what
all is possible, as I am so very new to all of this.)

So what I am essentially asking is -- the long version got saved correctly
many times during writing it, and right before the short version got saved
over it. Is there a place where Notepad places backup versions, or temp
files, or files it creates when a "save" is done during writing the
document?
Are there any residue (?) files that Notepad creates as the file is worked
on and continuously saved?

Overall, there was almost a full day of my continually "saving" the long
document every hour or so. It was only after it was closed that it was
overwritten by the short/original version, when it (the short version) was
closed. So I am hoping that during the long day of working on the
long/second version, there would have been some files created by Notepad
when
I saved it every hour, etc., -- or something similar to that.

Thank you so much for your response!

Karen

Did you use Save or Save As when you were saving the document as you were
working.
If you used Save only then it will not be there and if you used Save As
then the
document should still be there

--
Peter

Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me find a previous version of a
document on my desktop. My system is Windows XP, and it is a Notepad
.txt
document.

Here is my problem:

I worked in Notepad and created a large document. I saved it and named
it,
and then saved it many times throughout working on it. I then left the
project and worked on some other things for a while. I did NOT close
the
document (which becomes the problem later). When I came back to the
project,
I forgot that I had NOT closed the original document, and went to the
folder
it was stored in, and 'opened' it from there. Because there is some
type of
bug in Notepad, it will actually open up the document as a second
identical
document instead of telling you that it is already open, or instead of
automatically just going to the already-opened document. Thus, I now
had two
of the same document open on my desktop.

Because there were a lot of things open on my desktop at the time, I
didn't
notice that there were two. (Especially since I had forgotten that I
had not
closed it when I left it the first time.) So I thought that the
'second'
copy of the document was the only one, of course, and began to work in
it,
adding a tremendous amount of data. I worked in the document through
the day
and into the night, and then closed the document as you would normally
do.

That of course saved the document correctly, and all would have been
fine,
except there was the original/first document (now just a PARTIAL
document,
compared to the completed one) sitting there on my desktop, unbeknownst
to
me. I didn't shut down the computer, and when I came back to the
computer
today I saw the open document and thought to myself "I must be going
bananas,
I thought I closed that document when I finished it". I didn't think
about
it much more and closed the (original/partial) document.

Later in the day I wanted to edit something in the document, and opened
it
via the normal means. To my horror, the document only contained the
data in
it from when I had stopped working on it the first time, but had NONE
of the
data in it from the long day and night's work.

It seems that although I correctly saved and closed the long (second)
document, it got overwritten by the first (shorter) document when that
one
was closed AFTER the second (longer) document was closed. Thus,
because it
was closed last, it was interpreted as the latest version of the
document.
Of course, it shouldn't have been closed last, but I had no idea that I
was
interacting with two different documents at the time, and that a bug
making
two copies of the same document was even possible.

So somewhere there (hopefully) is a temp doc (if I'm using that term
right)
of the long/second version of the document, from when I saved and
closed it,
and from before it got overwritten by the short/first version, when it
got
closed last.

Here it is in a nutshell:
1) Created new Notepad .txt document [we'll call it Version A, and
estimate
it was 50 pages].
2) Named and saved it correctly.
3) Did NOT close it.
3) Left and came back to work on it.
4) Forgot document was still open (due to many docs open at time), and
so
opened it by clicking on it.
5) Due to a bug in Notebook, it opened a second copy, instead of
telling me
it was already open.
6) Worked in the second copy [we'll call it Version B, and estimate it
at
200 pages], not knowing Version A (50 pgs) was still open.
7) Correctly saved and closed Version B (200 pgs).
8) Next day noticed Version A (50 pgs) still open, but not knowing that
it
was Version A, thought that I had forgotten to close Version B.
9) Closed Version A (50 pages), of course thinking there had only been
ONE
document, and that is was Version B.
10) Both versions were now closed, though at this point I didn't know
there
were two versions.
11) Opened the document to edit it. Document only contained info from
Version A (50 pgs). All of the (additional) work in Version B
(originally
200 pgs) was gone.
12) Thus, closing Version A (50 pgs) after Version B (200 pgs)
overwrote
Version B with Version A.
13) Version B (200 pgs) had been saved on its own before I closed
Version A
(50 pgs), so I know that somewhere there must be a backup version or
temp
version of THAT document at THAT time.

Or that is my HOPE.

I am hoping that there is some place that the system stored a copy of
the
Notepad .txt document when I saved and closed Version B (200 pgs),
(when it
was still fine, and not yet overwritten by Version A.) I am not even
sure
about what I am looking for, as I definitely don't know the in's and
out's of
my computer. But I am hoping that there are temp files, or some type
of
(backup?) file that was created each time I pressed "save". I haven't
shut
down the computer since the doc was created, so hopefully no temp files
have
been lost yet.

Is there a place on the computer where I could look? As I mentioned,
the
document is a Notepad document, with a .txt extension.

Could you teach me about what type of file is generated when you save a
document each time, and where they might be stored? I know there are
specifics related to what program the document is written in -- is
anyone
familiar with where Notepad places all of its background files?

This is where I have looked so far -- but there is nothing:
1) The same folder as where the original file is.
2) C:\Documents and Settings\Karen\Local Settings\Temp
3) C:\WINDOWS\Temp
4) C:\temp

Perhaps you could tell me exactly what kind of file I am looking for,
as all
the files that are a .txt file are logs, and all of the other temp
files are
unopenable by anything. I think there is a lot I still need to be
educated
about. Especially when it comes to what Notepad itself does during
saving/backup, etc. I am so thankful for your help!

I have my fingers (very) crossed, as my heart just sunk when I opened
up the
document and saw all of the work gone, as all of the information was
important medical information. I'm just so appreciative of being able
to
post here! Thank you for your time, and for any information that you
might
have in locating a previous version, or a backup, or a temp file, of
the
document when it had been saved previously.

Thank you so very much!

Karen

 

[hopeful]

Hi Peter, Elmo/Joe, and Roy --

I just wanted to thank each of you for your replies, as they helped me
realize that my document was not recoverable, and what things had contributed
to that so that I could prevent it the next time. It was heartbreaking to
realize it's unrecoverable, but it is a comfort to know it via information,
and being able to post for advice, instead of assuming it and worrying that
I'm wrong.

Thank you for all of the background information that you provided, too, to
explain why it was unrecoverable, and to help clarify how to prevent it from
happening again.

I also appreciate being given the search tools, in case it happens again, in
a different situation, where something is indeed recoverable, and being told
to download the program to a flash drive or floppy so as not to overwrite
anything.

I should ask, too -- when you say download, Joe, does that mean that neither
Recuva or Restoration need to be "installed" to use them? (I would be
downloading them to a CD, if that's possible.)

Thank you again, each of you, for all of the help, and for educating me
about each thing that you said, and explaining things in detail so that I
understood everything as a whole. It was so very helpful.

Very gratefully,

Karen