"Can I get that lost file back, or is it gone
forever?"
ROME: 11th March 2006 -- Every problem (almost) has a
solution. Two things prompt this austraLasia: a request from a
desperate confrere with a corrupt Word file and the arrival of
a 'Dear ...' letter from a data recovery firm offering 'free-to-try'
data recovery software. The request was easily solved; the letter
-
well, according to a principle espoused in #1475, why should
one pay (after trying) when it is possible to do the same for
nothing?
As everyone at some time or other unthinkingly deletes a file then
needs
it back, or suffers some form of file corruption, I thought maybe some
simple practical advice might be
helpful. At a certain point, however, simple solutions don't work
and
you either get expert help or give up!
The solution to the confrere's problem was
simple. Not always but
often, a corrupted Word file will open in another, similar
program. I use OpenOffice anyway, as often as I can, and that's
free.
On this occasion OO had no trouble in opening the 'corrupt' file.
But
there was another method we could have used - and most people don't
know they have it! Select a file to open in the 'open' window,
and once you have selected it go down to the 'open' box
where you see a little down-arrow. Left click the arrow and you
will
find an 'open and repair' option. Excel has the same option.
Yet another solution was to save a copy of the
offending
file but as .txt instead of .doc. Then try opening that - it
often
works.
What if it is a case of a deleted file? That
too can be easy
enough, especially if it was recent. Let's presume you've looked
in
the recycle bin and can't find it there (since
looking there is the best way to begin). No file is actually really
deleted for quite some time, even if all visible traces of it are
gone. The trick is to know how to find invisible traces!
There is a
very simple little zip programme, free of course, that you can
download. I keep it on my desktop - or rather, I unzip it to the
desktop where it is easily visible and usable from a folder, since it
involves several small files. It is called
Restoration.zip. http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/Restoration.zip
Just
follow the directions once you've unzipped it. You don't need to
have
lost a file to try it. It will find all your recently deleted
files
for you. That's a Hungarian effort. If you prefer a
Japanese one and
want something also a bit more sophisticated, then DataRecovery at
http://tokiwa.tomato.ne.jp/EN/DataRecovery_EN.zip
should help. One
step further up the ladder is PCInspector, still free at
www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm
There are still other solutions of this kind, also free, but enough is
enough!
These will not solve all your problems, and you may have additional
ones anyway, like a failed disk. But for mine, it's worth keeping
a
copy of
Restoration.zip since it adds nothing to your computer, doesn't fiddle
with the disk, and simply finds what you've lost, most of the time.
_______________________
AustraLasia is an
email
service for
the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an
agency
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