Emergency File Recovery

Hads930 · 03-09-2018, 12:45 PM

In short wife inadvertently over wrote a word file for a final paper for her master's program that is due tonight.

If you have any suggestions please post or PM me. I'm not a computer guy so I'll just be showing her your responses.

Thanks in advance.

spuggy · 02:22 PM

She did what exactly? Overwrote the file in the application? Or overwrote the file in the OS - e.g. copied the wrong file over it from a file manager?

What OS? What application?

If Word, should be able to revert to previous version; google "recover overwritten word document".

For anything below here, not using the computer is important. Don't use the browser, download any programs etc - because the data is likely still there but the OS thinks those blocks are unallocated - and so available for re-use.

Shutdown that machine- actually, if it were mine, depending on the OS/filesystem, I might be inclined to yank power/remove battery, rather than allow the OS to overwrite anymore - switch it off, remove the drive and run recovery operations from another machine.

If simply deleted the file, that's be pretty easy to recover from. Recuva on Windows, for example. Or just run up a hex editor on the directory entry, for FAT.

If overwrote file in OS (e.g. overwrote file with same name from file manager), that's trickier; if you have backups, check them now. If not, for the future, look into this thing called the cloud and consider saving important files to cloud storage. Perhaps with date/time in the name. And/or online backups; Backblaze seems awesome.

There are programs that can recover files from unallocated blocks by detecting/re-assembling the data. Something like EaseUS (PC & Mac, never used it personally) or TestDisk & PhotoRec (which understands much more than just photos) - PhotoRec is very powerful and I'm quite impressed with it - but it doesn't come with a GUI...

Might want to get someone who's done this before/knows what they're doing if it's really important - which I'd say it was. Get a filing extension and enlist a professional service. Yeh, this costs money.

Good luck!

Hads930 · 03-09-2018, 02:21 PM

This is the wife, sorry hads930 for hijacking your post.

@spuggy, thank you for the feedback. I did come across a mention of Recuva, but ended up dropping $50 on a product called Kernal Data Recovery. It was a super easy product to use and best of all it worked.

In case anyone else needs this:
https://www.nucleustechnologies.com/Windows-Data-Recovery-Software.html

Lord, do I need a drink now!

lendaddy · 03-09-2018, 02:26 PM

Type %appdata% in the start menu search box then select the microsoft folder then the word folder. You'll see a bunch of oddly named word files, you can either check them all or go by the date/time she thinks it was last saved properly.

I'm not PC expert and will likely get corrected but essentially these are the autosaved temp files... It's saved me a few times with different office files I accidentally saved with new info (using the original as a template and forgetting to "save as").

A930Rocket · 06:16 PM

Wow. I lost a lot of pictures years ago because I didn’t really know about backing up. No cloud back then.

My wife just finished her doctorate and backed it up all the time. She sent me copies as another back up.

John Rogers · 03-09-2018, 04:18 PM

The last poster hit the nail on the head, so to speak. When I was working on my masters degree waaaaay back in 1989 one of the guys in our group had lost files just before we started in and was super paranoid and it affected all of us! I kept a copy of everything I did on 4 different 3.5 inch disks and put them in different places. There was no cloud then and now days I don't trust the cloud at all. I bought an external hard drive docking station several years ago and keep updating the drive and now have an 8GB drive which has room for everything. I still save the old drives and the other day found some of the 3.5 inch disks but no drive.

Backup

Backup

Backup

RKDinOKC · RKDinOKC's Garage

First three of Computer Commandments.

1. Computers are fun.
2. Easy is hard. If something is easy to do, it was hard to program.
3. 1, 2, 3 many backups.

Por_sha911 · Por_sha911's Garage

For the future, do progressive backups:
Thesis180308 (march 8th 2018) was yesterday and today when she makes changes do Save As: Thesis180309

this way you have a documented trail of changes and if you change your mind you can go back easily.

Hads930 · 03-09-2018, 05:51 PM

Hey guys thanks for the responses. She inadvertently saved the last class paper over the current classes final project, she had them both open and realized what she did immediately after she did it. She’s a bit on the crazy side about how things get stored with regards to her work and had it going to removable storage instead of the computer or cloud, something she said she will never do again.

The request for help was a bit self centered in that I knew what the temporary catastrophe would mean to myself and my daughter who is just starting spring break. Additionally I am a fixer and do not understand computers more than basic operations so I felt completely useless so I reached out to you guys for help. Fortunately she recovered the data for a nominal fee and turned her final in and is now resting with a straight dark rum on the rocks. All is well. Thanks again for the advice.

spuggy · 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hads930

recovered the data for a nominal fee and turned her final in and is now resting with a straight dark rum on the rocks.

I hardly dared look - but very glad it all turned out well, congrats! I forgot to start my advice with the traditional admonition to "breathe"....

Backblaze gives unlimited, versioned, per-machine backups for $5 a month, IIRC. I used to spend more than that on coffee a day...

The cloud is hard to beat for documents that you might want to access anywhere, anytime (e.g. desktop, laptops, tablet, phone or a Chromebook). Although you might want to consider

For security, encrypt anything that's sensitive to prevent casual compromise, although some knowledge/research goes a long way; some approaches can be considered compromised out of the box - and big actors will get it anyway if they want it bad enough:

scottmandue · 03-10-2018, 08:09 AM

I'm sorta techy... when I typing a document I periodically see "document auto saved" I presume that is some setting in the word processor?

RE: The cloud, a few years back I sold my soul to google but avoided "the cloud". Recently I was checking my gmail and a pop up "check out google pictures!" so I check out google pictures... and all the pictures on my phone are there... BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE NUDE PICTURES ON MY PHONE!!!!
Oh wait... I don't have any nude pictures on my phone

Wait again... I have pictures of my cats on my phone... and THEY ARE NAKED!