deleted doc. important!!!

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G

Guest

I just saved a word doc. under the wrong filename. now i have overwritten an
original file which was VERY IMPORTANT to me and my work!

How can I get back the original document???

Using Windows XP
 
There is no feature in XP that can help you. If you have a backup, you can
try restoring from your backup. If you don't have a backup, while I don't
mean to lecture you, that is one of the best ways to protect your very
important files from just such an eventuality.

Go to Google and do a search for undelete, though given that you have
overwritten the original, I'm dubious any such utility will help but you
never know. Failing that, you can check out the various file recovery
services. You can find many such services advertised in the back pages of
many computer magazines you can pick up at any newsstand. PC Magazine and
Computer Shopper usually have such ads in their back pages.
 
I don't think that file recovery will work, as essentially there is nothing
to recover.. the file name exists and the file is in good condition, albeit
in altered form..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user
 
I don't think it will either, Mike, it was a "Hail Mary" pass!:-)

That said, in DOS days, you could sometimes pull this off because the system
created numerous temp files. Hence, even if you seemingly overwrote a file,
you might be able to find that temp file in DOS and using the old Undelete
function which no longer exists, you could find the original temp file
created before the save and depending upon how much you had used the system,
you could get a good part of the file albeit with some junk as well. Of
course, you had to use the old Exit to DOS function which no longer exists
either.

As near as I can tell, some of the more limited file recovery apps use a
similar technique. Now, if you are talking about file recovery services,
from what I gather, they can really drill down even if you've overwritten a
file. Remember, nothing is ever truly erased from a hard drive. When you
consider file eraser apps use something on the order of 32 rewrites to
overwrite files and the government uses something like 64, I'd say the
chances are pretty good of finding the original if someone wants to spend
the money for such a service.
 
Thank you both very much for your advice. I decided to start again with the
document, and as a punishment to myself I did not go to bed until it was
finished and BACKED UP!
Many thanks
Gary
 
Gary

Next time you edit an existing document, 'save as' <document name> 001.. the
document open will immediately become the revision version, leaving you with
the original still intact..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user
 
You're welcome, Gary and be sure to check Mike Hall's post as he's provided
some sage advice for the future.
 
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