God and Microsoft Word both hate me.

So. I'm writing an essay. For six hours.
My friend Caitlyn comes over. We play Wiisports for 20 minutes.
I go back to my laptop.
And Microsoft Word has shut itself down/crashed/gone for a walk...?

And I'm a f*cktard. And I didn't save. (IN SIX HOURS I DIDN'T SAVE. N00B.)

Now. I re-open MSword, thinking that it might perchance recover my file like a good little user-friendly hunk of software.

But no.

And none of my "techie" friends can seem to find any of the temp files it should have been saving.

Only logical explanation being that I had an out-of-body experience, and a stupid streak all at once, and closed the program, and when I did so, specifically moved the cursor over the button that should have been labelled: "No, do not save this incredibly important essay"?

There's a miracle button on the bottom right-hand side of my computer, isn'there? Someone tell me there is.

Feel free to lock/remove this topic after everyone concedes that I'm screwed.

 

Word and Windows BOTH keep copies of recently opened files, but IIRC, they have to be already saved.

Word also makes a copy of a working document so that changes may be reverted. However, I think this will be lost with the original.

One way you can find out for certain is searching the entire hard drive for "*.doc". Here's how:

1. Right-click 'My Computer'
2. Select 'Search...'
3. In the 'Search Results' dialog, select the 'All Files And Folders' link
4. Under 'All Or Part Of The File Name:', type "*.doc" (without the quotes)
5. Ensure 'Search System Folders', 'Search Hidden Folders' and 'Search Subfolders' is selected under 'More Advanced Options'
6. Press the search button

Windows will now search the entire hard drive for word documents. Hopefully, you can find a copy of your essay there. If not, you can't do anything short of disk autopsy.

 

Thanks for your help, but it looks like I'm starting over. Damn, eh?

 

In Jess's situation where he opened Word and worked without saving his work, where was his work being written to? Was it all in RAM or does it end up over a period of six hours on the hard drive? If it's made it as far as the harddrive, it must be there in some form. Word saves things as .doc, but also, I think as .tmp. Since I read this thread, I've been wondering what actually happens when you start a new word document.
abri

 

It looks like temporary Word documents are written in C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\Local Settings\Temp as type ~DF...12.tmp

If you choose not to save them they are deleted immediately after closing save warning dialog. Perhaps if you shut down computer without closing Word the ~DF file might be there?

 

So word humpty dumped your doc. as you have explained you attempted to recover it when you opened word so the doc must have had a file name and word should have prompted you when you open it again if you wanted to recover your lost doc your computer should have prompted you word had an error and was shut down do you want to report it. Therefore, Unfortunatly and sadly this does read grim...

this is your last resort for recovery Unless you know a high tech super genius geek who knows how to recover data deleted 10years ago from hard drives

You can locate the default location of any temp docs by opening word click on tools pull down click on options click the file locations tab and the location is listed on the auto recover files line.

So to Recover files

1. If the Microsoft Office program you are using is not responding, recover the program.
   1. On the Microsoft Windows Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Office Tools, and then click Microsoft Office Application Recovery.
   2. In the Application list, click the program or document that is not responding.
   3. Do one of the following:
      • To attempt to recover the files you were working on, click Recover Application or Restart Application.
      • If you just want to close the program, and lose recent changes to the files, click End Application.
   4. The error that caused the problem can be reported to Microsoft for use in improving future versions of the program. Click Report problem or Don't report problem.
2. Open the Office program.
3. Review the files listed in the Document Recovery task pane, and decide which to keep. If a file has [Recovered] in the title it is usually a file that contains more recent changes than a file with [Original] in the title.
   • If you want to view what repairs were made to a file, point to the file in the Document Recovery task pane, click the arrow next to the file's name, and then click Show Repairs.
   • If you want to review the versions that were recovered, open all of the versions and save the best one.
4. For each file you want to keep, point to the file in the Document Recovery task pane, click the arrow next to the file's name, and then do one of the following:
   • To work with the file, click Open.
   • To save the file, click Save As, and then enter a name for the file. By default, the file is saved in the same folder as the original file. If you use the same name as the original file, the original is overwritten. When you see a message asking whether you want to replace the existing file (with the changes you made up to the last time you saved the file), click Yes.
5. When you have opened or saved all of the files you want to keep, click Close in the Document Recovery task pane.

If this fails:
your tech friends owe you for knowing how to make sure your computer was set up to met your specific uses like checking your word tools options save functions. I think they owe you big time and should you help rebuild your essay.
MOST IMPORTANT:

you must have your tech friends check your computer for virus, worms the works and word allows you to set the tools options save tab to automatically save, create automatic back ups and change the location your temp docs are saved to