Retreiving Overwritten (saved) Files

F

F Doddy

Hi, i found this post on the net and although it's not mine, I have the same problem

My sister accidentally overwrote a 20-page Word Document and replaced it with a (useless) blank one.
Is it possible to retreive the old file ? It is urgent

PLEASE HELP!!

F Doddy
 
J

Jay Freedman

Sorry, unless you have a separate backup or a printout that could be
scanned, that information is irretrievably lost.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

It depends somewhat on how it was overwritten and what your sister's Save
Options settings are.

1. If she has "Always create backup copy" checked on the Save tab of Tools |
Options, then she has some hope.

2. If (1) is true and your sister opened the file, accidentally (or
intentionally) deleted all the content, and used Save when she meant to use
Save As, then she's in great shape. She should look for the "Backup of
<filename>.wbk" file, which will be the previous version (with all the
content). She'll need to display All Files in File Open in order to find it
(it will be in the same folder as the document itself).

3. If she created a new blank document and saved it under the name of an
existing document, there is still some hope if (1) is true. If the existing
document had been saved fairly frequently, then the "Backup of
<filename>.wbk" file, which is the version before the latest one, may
contain most of the same content.

For the future, you might make these suggestions to your sister:

1. If she doesn't have the backup option enabled, she should enable it. If
it rescues her just once in a great while in a situation such as this, it's
worth the effort of periodically clearing out the buildup of backup files.
For more, see http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm

2. If she's using existing documents as templates, she must be extremely
vigilant about how she saves them. There are better alternatives, though. If
she's clearing out old content before saving, then it sounds like the
existing document is a good candidate for a true template; see
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm. If
she's building new documents on old ones (reusing the content), then Word
2002 and above offer the option (in the New Document task pane) to create a
new document from an existing document. When you do this, the document is
opened as Document# so that you are forced to Save As and can't
inadvertently save it under the old filename.

3. Whenever a save mistake of this nature is made, the true secret is *not
to close the file.* You can Undo back to the point where you started, resave
the document under the original filename, thus reversing the damage, then
Save As under a new filename and Redo to restore the changed content
(believe me, I've done this a time or two!).
 
G

Guest

Help i got the same problem the should realy incorparate
something that fixes this problem
 
J

Jay Freedman

"They" did incorporate something. If you use File > Save As and give it the
name of another file that already exists, Word shows a message box that asks
whether you want to replace the existing file. If you say yes, do you expect
to see another message box that says "Do you REALLY REALLY want to replace
that file, cross your heart and hope to die"? I don't think you can blame
Microsoft if their products follow the instructions you give them.
 
C

Charles Kenyon

Another solution is regular backups of your documents.

This really isn't a Word problem. Word does allow the making of (one)
complete backup file each time you open a document. Unfortunately, if you
don't know that the old file has been blitzed until you open it, it is too
late for that because your backup has now been overwritten.
--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.
 
B

Brown

I created a Word document this morning and saved it....I left it open for a friend to add some information....he says he hit the save icon, but when I tried to find the document, it is not there....shouldnt it at least be there from the point where I saved it?...is there a place where you can view all documents created within last twenty four hours?
HELP

Brown
 
D

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

Is it not listed under the most recently used files under File menu?

Use Windows explorer to search for the document either by the name under
which you saved it or for a file containing some text that would hopefully
be unique to that document.

--
Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
 

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