[NomDeKeyz]

My friend is in a panic. One minute he was typing his story, the next minute it was gone... A blank white slate staring back at him, the title of his document still intact, the Microsoft Word (2007) program still running, and confusion in his mind. He is running a windows 7 laptop, I don't really know the specifics, but I can find them out, if need be...

I searched the internet and found several approaches to restoring lost files, BUT, the file is still there; it's the content of the file we want to restore. Is there any way to go back to a previous save? Thanks ever so much in advance for any and all suggestions/assistance. And Good Tidings to you.

[Advertisements]

Hi NomDeKeyz,

If she haven't close the Word program yet, let your friend try clicking the back button. (or CTRL+Z in the keyboard).

[Salagubang]

Hi NomDeKeyz,

If she haven't close the Word program yet, let your friend try clicking the back button. (or CTRL+Z in the keyboard).

[NomDeKeyz]

Thanks Muchly for the idea; alas, this was tried...

Furthermore, the program (and even the computer) has since been shut down (without using any save options) and reopened in the process of bringing it to my house. He will leave his computer with me for a week in hopes that something can be done to restore the text. (He really isn't one for forum tech-assistance/communication. Tho... if you want a poetry reading, he's fantabulous.)

[Salagubang]

In Word, the document should be in the list of most recent used files, what happens if you try opening it from there?

[NomDeKeyz]

If I go to recent documents, and click on the file name, I am led to what looks like a new word document, except that it has the file name in question; in other words, a blank slate - the very same blank slate that appeared in lieu of the work in progress at the time in question.

Since this happened during a rainy storm, we assume a power fluctuation of some sort? He was plugged into a wall socket. (All other files are intact, just the one that was open at the time is amiss.)

Edited by NomDeKeyz, 24 December 2010 - 12:54 AM.

[Salagubang]

Can you check the size of that file. Right click the file and choose properties.

[NomDeKeyz]

This is interesting (to me)...

General: PARIS DIARY
Type of file: Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2003 Document (.doc)
Opens with: Microsoft Office Word
Location: C:\Users\User\Documents\PROSE
Size: 29.0 KB (29,696 bytes)
Size on Disk: 32.0 KB (32,768 bytes)
Created: Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 4:28:48 PM
Modified: Yesterday, December 22, 2010, 7:52:54 PM
Accessed: Yesterday, December 22, 2010, 7:52:54 PM


(The file is actually much older than the created date;
that's the date he transferred it onto this computer.
We were able to salvage the file from the old computer...
so all is not lost, but enough to keep trying. Thankyou!)

[Salagubang]

If he unknowingly clicked on save, then the new save would effectively overwritten the old file.

Your next check is to find if there's a back-up file lurking around.

Do a search for PARIS DIARY.bak

[Salagubang]

(The file is actually much older than the created date;
that's the date he transferred it onto this computer.
We were able to salvage the file from the old computer...
so all is not lost, but enough to keep trying. Thankyou!)

Or maybe we are looking at a totally different file.

Extend the search to any file with the name paris or diary.

Edited by Salagubang, 24 December 2010 - 01:37 AM.

[NomDeKeyz]

We did that and that too, also to no avail.

However, thanks to your suggestion, we compared the file size of the old file from the old computer to the file on this computer, and found that the new file is reading substantially smaller than the old one. It really should be bigger, if anything. So, we decided to revert to the old file, and make up the difference (the amount of work done since the transfer isn't beyond recreation).

Thankyou very much for your advice and direction. I really don't know why I didn't think to compare properties sooner, lol. Thankyou especially for volunteering your time during the holiday season. Have a Warm Winter and a Happy New Year. Cheers!


Status: RESOLVED


(Is there something more I should do to mark this thread as resolved-ish?)

Edited by NomDeKeyz, 24 December 2010 - 01:52 AM.

[Salagubang]

Your welcome.

[Mac Carol]

This just started happening to me on an Apple (Mac) laptop. My whole document went blank as I was working in it. But then I saw that the drop-down menus I tried to use were also blank, so it occurred to me that the content might still be there ... I just couldn't see it. So I used the shortcut for "Save" (command-S) and closed the document. When I opened it, the document was still blank, and so were the drop-down menus. So I quit Word and rebooted it. When Word reopened, everything was normal, and all of my content and edits in the document were intact.
If you're nervous about saving and shutting down your Word document for fear that your content will be erased, you can hit "Save As" and make yourself a back-up before closing the windows. But this solution worked for me. It has happened a few times since then, and quitting/reopening Word restored everything to normal.
Interestingly, my font selector menu sometimes goes blank in InDesign as well. I just use the Text drop-down menu instead ... or again, save, quit and reopen InDesign.