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MS Office Forum / Word / Word Errors / March 2006Files changes lost - recovery?
I spent several hours last week working on 2 Word documents (Word 2004 for Mac on an iBook). The changes made to both files disappeared. The easiest explanation is that I closed the program without saving them, but that usually causes a dialog box to pop up and ask if I want to save. It's possible that I clicked no to both, but that seems odd to me. Any ideas on what might have happened? More importantly, is there any hope of recovery now? I'm so used to the AutoSave feature in Word for PCs that I no longer save regularly and I'm surprised that I can't find this option in Word for Mac. Am I missing something? (I have it set to do AutoRecover every 10 minutes, so it should have done that, but I can't find any autorecovered files either.) Thanks!! mlh AutoRecover is NOT a substitute for saving; see http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm. AutoRecovery backups are deleted when you close a file normally; they come into play only if Word hangs. If you can close a modified file without being prompted to save (in any version of Word), then there is something wrong.  SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > I spent several hours last week working on 2 Word documents (Word 2004 for > Mac on an iBook). The changes made to both files disappeared. The easiest [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Thanks!! > mlh Any thoughts on what the "something wrong" might be? By the way, since posting this, I hunted around some more and found one of the two documents saved in my Trash as a Word Work File. Unfortunately, the other one wasn't there. Thanks, Maggie > AutoRecover is NOT a substitute for saving; see > http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm. AutoRecovery backups > are deleted when you close a file normally; they come into play only if Word > hangs. If you can close a modified file without being prompted to save (in > any version of Word), then there is something wrong. I would investigate the possibility of a virus, but it's remotely possible that this is the result of an unusually inept add-in. Do you see the same problem if you start Word in Safe Mode (using the /a switch or holding down Ctrl while Word loads)? SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > Any thoughts on what the "something wrong" might be? > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > hangs. If you can close a modified file without being prompted to save (in > > any version of Word), then there is something wrong. I've lost hours of work because of this in the past 10 yrs, although several versions of MS Office were released in the meantime. When will Microsoft solve this issue? We are overwhelmed by dialog boxes asking us to confirm actions that are reversible! And by temp files that pile up and are never deleted automatically. The minimum for a paid business software would be to address this! Where could I voice this concern? HF > AutoRecover is NOT a substitute for saving; see > http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm. AutoRecovery backups [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Thanks!! > > mlh Let me state again that if you have temp files piling up and not being deleted, the problem is outside Word. If you can close an unsaved document without being prompted to save, the problem is outside Word. Neither of these is normal. If you are prompted to save and say no, then the data loss is your own fault, period. SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > I've lost hours of work because of this in the past 10 yrs, although several > versions of MS Office were released in the meantime. When will Microsoft [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > > > Thanks!! > > > mlh Thank you for this clarification. And I am very much aware that saying no when prompted to save a file looses the data irreversibly. Too bad if it's a mistake. I was just trying to say that it would be a great Microsoft feature to be able to reverse such a mistake, just as many mistakes can be reversed. Is this something to provide at the Windows level? > Let me state again that if you have temp files piling up and not being > deleted, the problem is outside Word. If you can close an unsaved document [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > > > > Thanks!! > > > > mlh Building reversibility into this would just result in even more temp files that would *not* be deleted. In order to allow for a user's change of heart about closing without saving, Word would have to keep a copy of the latest AutoRecovery backup pretty much indefinitely. SignatureSuzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. > Thank you for this clarification. And I am very much aware that saying no > when prompted to save a file looses the data irreversibly. Too bad if it's a [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > > > > > Thanks!! > > > > > mlh |
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