[Bells]

I saved some work on a USB stick, and unfortunately forgot to save it on the hard drive as well. I was working with the document from the USB stick itself, when something happened (can't remember what exactly), and I had to eject it. When I put it back in, the document I was working on had gone.

I tried to resume working from it by going to 'My Recent Documents', and when I clicked on the document a message popped up saying 'The item that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved, so this shortcut will no longer work properly'; the same sort of thing happening if I click on the document direct from the 'my recent documents' bit in Microsoft Word.

Will I be able to retrieve the document at all - can anyone help please?

[~Kizwiz~]

Hmmm.... if you cant see it on your usb stick...... it gone I am afraid. You might want to try and look for any temp files the word might have created if auto save was on.

[Bells]

Thanks for replying Kiz... well Word didn't automatically save anything, because the document appears to have gone somewhere... In the latest documents list when I click on it, it just says the file is not available. I attempted to save the file from the USB stick into My Documents, but something weird happened.

Strange thing is, when I look at the information of the document from the list, it says it's in My Documents, yet it's not and when I try to open it it says that the file is not available. So I don't understand what's happened at all...

[~Kizwiz~]

That sounds really weird....I dont know much about word......

It sounds like its got corupted somewhere

[~Kizwiz~]

I hope not.............but I dont know what else to do

[Bells]

Thanks for your help Kiz - if anyone else knows anything else PLEASE help, I'd be really grateful!

[Psylocke]

Thias happens my mp3 player somtimes. (when you pull out a usb without notice the computer gets confused)

Do a system restore on your compute to maybe 2 days ago or whatever and try your stick again.

and

The document is still on your stick,so dont format it or anything.if you use the stick on another computer you will get your document back.



thats if i think i know whats wrong.Hope it gets better

[Bells]

Thanks for that help. I tried a System Restore but even that ended up incomplete and didn't work, plus the USB Device didn't work on a different computer (and I just have the two to try it on). That must means it's corrupt or something seriously weird has happened... which is so upsetting because I can't get it back!

[James]

Go to Start / Search and do a search for 'a word or phrase in the file' that you know you used in the . Search the whole of 'My Computer' and select 'search hidden files and folders' under Advanced Options (and search for all types of file here). You can also select the date that you know it was modified in (like the last week).

If it finds any got to Edit menu and 'Copy to folder' and copy onto the desktop or another folder and rename the copied file to add .doc to the end and then try it to open it to see if it is your lost file.

If that doesn't work you can try a program like on these on the USB stick for recovering deleted files (I haven't tried any of these though)...

http://officerecovery.com/freeundelete/
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...scription.html
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

http://www.repairmyword.com/ - repairs corrupt Word files.

[Bells]

Thanks a lot for all your help James... I stayed up till about 2am trying to fix it but not late enough to get your message; I've not tried any of those sites either, but they look really useful and quicker in case something like this happens again (which it hopefully won't). I had already tried the Search method, but nothing came up.

In the end I persevered and the USB stick worked on a different computer... so I quickly saved it on my desktop. It was a complete nightmare! Guess there was just something up with the USB stick, but anyway, I'll make sure nothing like this ever happens again!

[GiRTh]

It's gone. Come to terms with it.

[Bells]

Originally posted by GiRTh
It's gone. Come to terms with it.

From the response above yours:

In the end I persevered and the USB stick worked on a different computer... so I quickly saved it on my desktop.

[GiRTh]

You were lucky.

[Bells]

I know - REALLY lucky! I've been quite lucky this last week actually... I'm so glad I got it in the end. The experience has made me a lot more cautious though, which is why I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

[GiRTh]

How will you make sure that it never happens again?

[Bells]

Always save the document on the hard drive as well as a USB stick, and perhaps email it to myself as well to make sure I can retrieve it on another computer if I need to.

[GiRTh]

That's very thorough.