Emergency MS Word file retreival

[TallTravel]

Is there a way to recover an original file which has been replaced by another on a flash drive?

My girlfriend has her Curriculum Vitae in MS Word formet. She has two versions: the short version is 6 pages long, and the long version is 8 pages long.

This morning she replaced the long version with the short version, and lost 2 pages of vital information. She has everything stored on a flash drive, including both the versions.

Now, she has apparently lost the vital longer version with no known hard copy record. The information on the extra pages is nearly impossible to re create, as it would take weeks to rebuild all the information.

I am going to save the lecture about back ups for later. Anyone know of a way to recover what she had before she saved the short version with the MS Word name of the longer version? I have already checked her laptop for the longer version.

[kram 2.0]

What version of Microsoft Office were you using? Was it saved in *.doc or *.docx format?

kram

[TallTravel]

Originally Posted by kram 2.0 What version of Microsoft Office were you using? Was it saved in *.doc or *.docx format? kram

It is office 2003, and it uses .doc extension.

[glc]

I highly doubt that you will be able to do anything. You could try some data recovery programs.

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm
http://www.recuva.com/
http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy/

[EzyStvy]

Also look in Word->Tools->Options->"Save" tab and see if "always create a backup copy" is enabled. If so, look in the File Locations tab.

[TallTravel]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy Also look in Word->Tools->Options->"Save" tab and see if "always create a backup copy" is enabled. If so, look in the File Locations tab.

Thanks. I think that would depend on the frequency she has that option set to save, if at all. She worked on the file for only a short time this morning, so if we are really lucky Word might have saved the longer version with the old file name on her computer, then she might have logged off before it had time to save the shorter version with the same name. We'll check it now.

[aarathi]

You can search the file using extension name. Find option is available in office.

[TallTravel]

Originally Posted by aarathi You can search the file using extension name. Find option is available in office.

Yes, I have done that many times, but the problem is not finding the file, it is finding the version of the file which was formerly called " Long version of CV ". It has been overwritten with the same file name, but with a shorter version of the file. It is the information in the longer version which is vital.