Need Assistance Finding/Restoring Excel File in Win7

[Guest GorbosMonster]

Hello all, I joined this community, because I saw the excellent results that came in this topic with a similar problem:

microsoft-office/cant-find-saved-excel-file-in-outlook-temp-folder-t95551.html

 

My story is:

I opened an excel spreadsheet in my gmail account (without saving to disk). For the next four or five hours I worked in a frenzy adding information and editing it, since this is due on Monday for work. I then clicked 'Save' and closed it off. Of course, when I opened Excel, the file was not there under recent documents. I could find it nowhere on my computer, I searched all my document folders and went through all the Temp folders I can find and I couldn't find it.

When I opened up the gmail attachment again, it opened up as ___[1], meaning I believe that the first file is still there right? But I have absolutely no idea where. And windows 7 search button is completely horrible.

 

If anyone can be of assistance I would appreciate it. I would rather not have to redo this document, because I have absolutely no idea of some of the info I did! So it would be great to have the original.

 

Thanks in advance

[Rufio]

Hey GorbosMonster nice to meet you!

 

That sucks! Hours of work... Hopefully it's still up somewhere.

You said you opened it in Gmail? If you were editing it from there it might have opened up in Google Docs, you might want to check it at http://docs.google.com. Google Docs automatically save so if it is in there it should be in it's full entirety.

 

If not.. I'm so programmed with Office 2010 now I can't remember the recover options for 2007, maybe one of the groovy dudes knows.

[Guest GorbosMonster]

Thanks, I defintely opened up in excel 2007..I had tried to open it up in google docs but wasn't comfortable editing it there, so I had reopened it in excel 2007...

I did find a tmp file that was saved around that time, but I don't know how I open/view those to check

[Rufio]

oh cool, a tmp file might be it.

 

to open a .tmp file that you KNOW is for Excel, just right-click it and do Open With > Select Program

then choose Excel 2007 to open it.

[Austin]

Welcome to the community Gorbos!

 

Just to throw in some quick ideas here...

It could be a tmp file but if you never actually closed Excel yourself it's more likely AutoRecover picked it up.

 

Autorecover files end in .asd - You can find where Excel stores these from the Options menu, look for the AutoRecover file location.

If you want to search for these in the Start Menu universal search Type in

*.asd

and it should bring up those file types. It might have a funky name, so watch out.

 

You might also want to look for file names that start with a tilde (~), since autorecover and temp files start with those names. In the Start menu search for

~*.*

and see if the date modified matches up for any files when you working on your spreadsheet.

[Steve Krause]

Couple things to try.

 

1: Open the document again from Google Docs and after it's open, Click "Save-As" and see where it's putting it. You might even see the document you worked on originally. If you see it under the Save As folder, just right click it and click OPEN and you might be able to open it.

 

Another thing you can do is:

Open Excel

Click the Office Button on the Top Left of Excel then

Click Excel Options Button

Click Save Menu on the Left

 

Now you should see exactly where your Default Save location is as well as the AutoRecover file location.

 

Look in both these places for the file.

 

Any luck?

[Guest GorbosMonster]

Thanks for the help, I haven't been lucky yet, but here are the results:

The temp file won't open in excel, so it must not be the right one

No *.asd files show up in the search, no relevant ~ files show up in the next search

I checked the folders it automatically saves to, there is nothing in the regular save folder, and in the autosave there is one item, but it's an .xlb and unopenable

 

Any thoughts on what to try next? I'm going to redo the project, but it would be good to have the copy I slaved over for hours just to make sure I didn't miss anything

[shockersh]

I would try 3 things:

 

1 - Like MrGroove said, go and close everything. Then open up your browser again the same way as you did before. Open up your Excel file then type a little then click save. Now, Click Save-As and look to see where you are and what files are available. Do you see your old file?

 

2 - Open the command prompt by typing WIN+R (windows key + R). Now type CMD and hit the enter key.

 

Now you should be in a Windows Command Prompt

 

Type cd / <-- That will take you to the root of your C Drive.

Type dir *filename*.* /s <-- Replace filename with a portion of the Excel file you originally saved to your drive.

 

3 - If all that won't work, then go and download Recuva and use it to try and UNDELETE any files in your Excel TEMP Autosave folder. If you had Autosave enabled with Excel then old copies of the file should be saved in the Autosave folder. Using Recuva or some other UNDELETE program you should be able to recover the deleted Autosave files.

 

4 - Last Idea. Use Previous Versions in Windows 7 to restore an older version of the Windows 7 folder or Excel Autosave folder. This is a LONG STRETCH but it's kinda the last ditch effort after #3. Just Right Click on the Excel folder where you have Excel using for the Autosave and Click Properties. Then Click the Previous Versions tag. Try to restore the folder to the time around when you were working on the file.

 

Keep us updated!

[Guest GorbosMonster]

Thanks for your help, here are my results (unfortunately I couldn't find it...I think it's a lost cause)

1. The save-as went to Documents, there are no .xls files there

2. The cmd search (thanks for showing me that, btw, should be very helpful in the future!) showed up nothing

3. I used recuva to look at my temporary internet files, and my autosave folder, it didn't come up

and 4. there were no restore points on that day

 

Well, thank you all for your help! I will definitely try these next time I lose a file, but it looks like in this case, I was screwed

[Steve Krause]

Well, thank you all for your help! I will definitely try these next time I lose a file, but it looks like in this case, I was screwed

 

Very unfortunate. I always say however that you never learning anything unless something breaks.. So although you might not be walking away with your data, you are walking away with knowledge!

 

One thing to note - the longer you wait to try an undelete app like Recurva, the lower the chance will be you might be able to recover something useful. The reason is because when Windows deletes a temporary file like an autosaved version of an Office document, the file is still there just the pointer is gone. The next time Windows wants to write something to the drive however that location on the drive is available if needed so the data can be overwritter.

 

That's why when I delete something and I need to undelete it, I "quickly" try to do as little as possible on the drive in order to increase the chance for recovery.

 

[Steve Krause]

Thanks for your help, here are my results (unfortunately I couldn't find it...I think it's a lost cause)

1. The save-as went to Documents, there are no .xls files there

2. The cmd search (thanks for showing me that, btw, should be very helpful in the future!) showed up nothing

3. I used recuva to look at my temporary internet files, and my autosave folder, it didn't come up

and 4. there were no restore points on that day

 

Well, thank you all for your help! I will definitely try these next time I lose a file, but it looks like in this case, I was screwed

 

Well... you inspired me a bit... If you don't want to EVER lose any data again using Microsoft Office (or any other app for that matter that users temp folders), take a look at this article that was just posted on the main site:

 

Link Dropbox To Microsoft Office And Never Lose Work Ever Again!

 

Hope that helps!