Recovery Of An Overwritten Microsoft Word File.

[Mobi]

Over the weekend I was tidying up some of my old ‘word files’ and I accidentally overwrote a current file I was working on with an old file which had the same name. The lost file was around 10,000 words and is irreplaceable.

I have spent the past 2 days trying to recover this file. I have painstakingly followed Microsoft’s own instructions and have also Googled extensively on this problem. Many people, much smarter than me, advise that overwritten files are nigh on impossible to recover – much more difficult than deleted files. I have searched for back up files and temporary files in “Word”, (files with ‘.wbk’, .asd., ‘~’ extensions etc etc), but to no avail.

In desperation I have downloaded several different ‘file recovery’ software packages. I think I identified the file in one piece of software but couldn’t recover anything meaningful.

The next software I tried was much better and I have located a number of files on my hard disk with the file name I am looking for. (Presumably there are a number versions of these files as they were generated at different stages of the file being written and saved).

I have managed to restore a number of these files using the recovery software. Some of them are Microsoft Word files (‘.docx’ extensions) but will not open in Microsoft word but will in ‘Wordpad’ or ‘Open Office’, but the text is all gibberish. Others have an ‘.asd.’ extension, but also open as gibberish. I have tried to open these ‘gibberish files in Microsoft word using the “recover Text from any file” facility but all that it seems to do is change the gibberish from Asian (character based) gibberish to European type gibberish.

Here are screen prints which illustrate this.

screen print 1.docx

Screen print 2.docx

Having spent two solid days on this I am about to give up, unless any of you geniuses out there have something new to advise. Is there any way to reconstruct the gibberish into intelligible English?

Please bear in mind I have gone through all the standard recovery methods and have so far drawn a blank.

Thanks for any expert advice.

Edited November 10, 2010 by Mobi

[Supernova]

I'm sure you have looked in all the right places for a solution... Unfortunately, overwritten files are next to impossible to recover.

[steve187]

If all else has failed, I suggest doing a backup of your current system settings with acronis or norton, and then try a system restore to a point prior to the overwrite. If that fails to restore the file, you could then restore the system using the ealier created backup, you would be back to square one again, but no worse off.

[Mobi]

If all else has failed, I suggest doing a backup of your current system settings with acronis or norton, and then try a system restore to a point prior to the overwrite. If that fails to restore the file, you could then restore the system using the ealier created backup, you would be back to square one again, but no worse off.

Thanks for that.

This highlights one of the main issues I have with Windows 7. Unlike XP, it doesn't automatically create restore points every day or so, and as far as I can see, I can't even create 'instant' restore points manually, which in XP only takes a few seconds.

In W7, restore points are only created when you do a full back up and at no other time.This of course takes time, and ideally has to be backed up up to an external disk drive. So as I back up every two weeks, the last restore point is a week before I created and overwrote the file.

I may have missed something on this restore point business and would like to know if others have had the same issue. It won't help with the deleted file, but would be useful to know for the future.

Thanks.

[Supernova]

I can't even create 'instant' restore points manually,

<snip>

Don't why that is, but I can't say I've seen others with this problem.

This may help:

How to Make a Create System Restore Point Shortcut

[Mobi]

I can't even create 'instant' restore points manually,

<snip>

Don't why that is, but I can't say I've seen others with this problem.

This may help:

How to Make a Create System Restore Point Shortcut

Thanks, this is a useful reference and I will use it.

However, it is only of limited protection.

These restore points contain information about registry settings and other system information that Windows 7 uses. System Restore points do not include the personal user files.

This seems to me to be a major issue with W7 that needs addressed as it is quite performance to do a proper backup of files and you don't want to be doing that twice a day...

Maybe the answer is to to do a frequent backup of 'personal files' using external software.

Edited November 10, 2010 by Mobi

[siamect]

Use a distributed version control system system and you are safe...

http://nathanj.github.com/gitguide/tour.html

http://git-scm.com/

Martin

[siamect]

... you would be back to square one again, but no worse off.

Unless the restore fails,,, I would restore to a different media before I do anything else to the original disk...

[h90]

you can try this guy: www.phuket-data-wizards.com

If he can't do it, no one can do it.....

[Cloggie]

You can try to undelete temporary files created by Word.

For example if your document name is BOOK.DOC then temp files are named ~$OOK.DOC

[frinch11]

Mobi, I sent you a PM

Regarding restore points, W7 does do this daily, but only by default on the system drive (i.e you C: drive). If, in Windows Explorer you right click on the folder where your file was saved, then if system protection is enabled for that drive you will see a menu item "restore previous versions", In your case you can right click the current file and check for previous versions.

[siamect]

Mobi, I sent you a PM

Regarding restore points, W7 does do this daily, but only by default on the system drive (i.e you C: drive). If, in Windows Explorer you right click on the folder where your file was saved, then if system protection is enabled for that drive you will see a menu item "restore previous versions", In your case you can right click the current file and check for previous versions.

Does the system restore point contain any user data?

[frinch11]

Mobi, I sent you a PM

Regarding restore points, W7 does do this daily, but only by default on the system drive (i.e you C: drive). If, in Windows Explorer you right click on the folder where your file was saved, then if system protection is enabled for that drive you will see a menu item "restore previous versions", In your case you can right click the current file and check for previous versions.

Does the system restore point contain any user data?

Yep, it applies to all files stored on that drive - so assuming user data is stored on the system drive, which is default, then you can right click any of the user folders in the libraries folder (my documents, my music etc) and view previous versions. Alternatively you can do this at file level in the aforementioned folders

[lopburi3]

Also W7 (Home Premium and above I believe) has backup built-in so if you have done any you should be able to recover a specific file easily from that.

[Supernova]

System Restore is not intended for backing up personal files, so it cannot help you recover a personal file that has been deleted or damaged. You should regularly back up your personal files and important data using a backup program.

Source

and then...

Previous versions are either backup copies—copies of files and folders that you back up by using the Back Up Files wizard, or shadow copies—copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point.

Source

[siamect]

System Restore is not intended for backing up personal files, so it cannot help you recover a personal file that has been deleted or damaged. You should regularly back up your personal files and important data using a backup program.

Source

and then...

Previous versions are either backup copies—copies of files and folders that you back up by using the Back Up Files wizard, or shadow copies—copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point.

Source

Very odd. I think it was like that on WinXP but I just checked om my wife's win7 starter netbook and there are previous version you can restore. I only checked on one folder on her desktop.

Martin

[frinch11]

System Restore is not intended for backing up personal files, so it cannot help you recover a personal file that has been deleted or damaged. You should regularly back up your personal files and important data using a backup program.

Source

and then...

Previous versions are either backup copies—copies of files and folders that you back up by using the Back Up Files wizard, or shadow copies—copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point.

Source

Yes you are right!

[Mobi]

Many thanks for all the recent replies. I am working through them.

Firstly, thank you frinch11; I had never noticed that option on the right click menu. Unfortunately I clicked on the overwritten file and many other files and each time I am told that there are 'no previous versions of this file'.

So then I get into this restore point business. I have checked again, and apart from some restore points that I set today, (after receiving the short-cut link from Supernova), there have been no restore points created since I did a full system back up on 31st of October, and so on back in time. There have been no automatic daily restore points on my system, yet apparently there should have been, as advised on the Windows 'help screen':

"...Previous versions are automatically saved as part of a restore point. If system protection is turned on, Windows automatically creates previous versions of files and folders that have been modified since the last restore point was made. Typically, restore points are made once a day"

So I checked to see if the protection was turned on my C hard drive, and it is.

So this is a complete mystery and explains why I have previously been bothered about the system not regularly creating restore points as it does in XP. It should have been, but it hasn't for some inexplicable reason.

Solving this will not get my file back, but can anyone offer a solution to this so that I get my daily restore points back up and running that should have been activated in the first place?

Cloggie, been there done that. I have even run software recovery packages that have tracked down the overwritten files but when I restore them I just get gibberish.

I shall work on the other suggestions tomorrow, but in the meantime I would like to solve the mystery of why my system is not creating automatic daily restore points. If it had, I wouldn't be having this nightmare with an overwritten file.

BTW my OS is Windows7 Professional. Original of course.

[Supernova]

System Restore is not intended for backing up personal files, so it cannot help you recover a personal file that has been deleted or damaged. You should regularly back up your personal files and important data using a backup program.

Source

and then...

Previous versions are either backup copies—copies of files and folders that you back up by using the Back Up Files wizard, or shadow copies—copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point.

Source

Very odd. I think it was like that on WinXP but I just checked om my wife's win7 starter netbook and there are previous version you can restore. I only checked on one folder on her desktop.

Martin

I just find it rather vague in its description. Assuming there are shadow copies of your personal files, which according to Microsoft are saved as part of a 'restore point', then System Restore does indeed backup personal files.

Am I missing something?!

[Mobi]

duplicate post (but not a backup)

Edited November 10, 2010 by Mobi

[Mobi]

I just find it rather vague in its description. Assuming there are shadow copies of your personal files, which according to Microsoft are saved as part of a 'restore point', then System Restore does indeed backup personal files.

Am I missing something?!

There seems little doubt that it does back up personal files. The pop up help window when you hit the 'restore previous versions' option on a personal file, makes it clear that old versions of files have been backed up in the system and can be restored.

I only wish that my system had created daily restore points as it should have been doing....

[Supernova]

can anyone offer a solution to this so that I get my daily restore points back up and running that should have been activated in the first place?

Automatically create restore points in Windows 7

...

Edited November 10, 2010 by Supernova

[Supernova]

Here's another possible solution to creating daily restore points...

Under Windows 7 you could use the Task Scheduler to invoke the VB Script below. Here is how it works.

1. Create a folder c:\Tools.

2. Using notepad.exe, create a file c:\Tools\CreateRestorePoint.vbs. The .vbs extension is important!

3. Copy & paste the code below into this file.

4. Save the file. Do not close it.

5. Double-click the file while in Explorer. Does it generate two pop-up messages? Did it create a Restore Point?

6. If yes, modify the code by changing this line:

MsgBox "System Restore Point created", 0, "System Restore"

to this one:

'MsgBox "System Restore Point created", 0, "System Restore"

Make sure to use to plain single quote, not a back-quote!

7. Double-click the file while in Explorer. Did it create another Restore Point?

8. Create a simple Scheduled Task that invokes wscript.exe with a parameter of c:\Tools\CreateRestorePoint.vbs. Get it to run under the System account.

9. Right-click the new task, then run it. Does it run, then finish? Did it create yet another Restore Point?

'------------------------------------------------------
'Create an instant System Restore Point under Windows 7
'------------------------------------------------------
If WScript.Arguments.Count = 0 Then
 Set oShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
 oShell.ShellExecute "wscript.exe", """" & WScript.ScriptFullName & """ Run", , "runas", 1
Else
 Set oWshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 oWshShell.Popup "Creating a SystemRestore point. Please wait.", 2, "System Restore", 0
 swinmgmts = "winmgmts:\\.\root\default:Systemrestore"
 GetObject(swinmgmts).CreateRestorePoint "Scheduled Restore Point", 0, 100
 MsgBox "System Restore Point created", 0, "System Restore"
End If

Source

[Mobi]

Thank you guys, I now know how to automate a daily restore point.

I must say that Windows needs to look closely at the language it uses.

Statements like "Typically, restore points are made once a day" are very misleading as it would appear that the user must set this up himself.

Now back to my overwritten file which wasn't backed up ata restore point.

Any ideas or should I now give up?

[frinch11]

Thank you guys, I now know how to automate a daily restore point.

I must say that Windows needs to look closely at the language it uses.

Statements like "Typically, restore points are made once a day" are very misleading as it would appear that the user must set this up himself.

Now back to my overwritten file which wasn't backed up ata restore point.

Any ideas or should I now give up?

Actually the scheduled restore point creation process does run once a day (look in your event viewer - you will see the entries). However it only creates a restore point if it detects software changes since the last restore point. This is Windows working more efficiently as a restore point is intended only for recovery from software problems not data loss, and as each restore points take up space on your hard drive it is a waste to create duplicates.

As someone mentioned earlier and Microsoft is at pains to point out, there is a backup program there for backing up your data to a separate physical drive, that is not what system restore is intended for. I only mentioned system restore originally in the context of recovering your missing file, in the sense that you may have got lucky and found that a system restore had picked up a copy. I was in no way recommending it as a data backup method.

Also, although I don't use Word much myself, I understand that there is a versioning feature which means every time you save your document, word will automatically create a new version for you.

One final thought for the future - what would you do if your hard disk died?

Regarding your overwritten file, advanced data recovery is a skill, not a set procedure, and nobody here is going to be able to turn you into an expert in a few paragraphs. However, you originally mentioned that you have some recovered files with similar names that may contain some, if not all of your file.

Fundamentally, all computer files are the same - just a big stream of 1's and 0's - it is individual programs that interpret these 1's and 0's to create an image or a sound, or render text in a word processor or run code etc. In order for your program to achieve this, your file will not only contain the text you entered but metadata - information about the file that the program can use to, in this case, render your document correctly. This includes style and font settings, page layout etc, as well as other more technical stuff.

If this metadata has been corrupted or is missing, your application will probably not be able to open the file, but your text (or part of it) may still be there and may be extractable using other methods, or maybe the file can be converted to a simpler Word format. This is something you could investigate and try if you wish, though it's best to look at the file size first - if it is only 4K it is obviously not going to contain 10,000 words of text.

Other than this it is a choice between paying an expert or starting again I'm afraid!

Sorry if this reads like a dull, humourless lecture!

[Digitalbanana]

As someone mentioned earlier and Microsoft is at pains to point out, there is a backup program there for backing up your data to a separate physical drive,

I have used this part of Windows 7 (Windows Back Up) which has options to do incremental backs on regular schedules. I found it (though a good idea) to be slow and ponderous. Incremental back ups took hours when only a few data files had been changed. I switched to a third party product (Acronis, but there are others to choose) and back up has become a pleasure rather than a chore taking a few minutes or seconds. It can be scheduled or even run in continuous back up mode. Just need to remember to have an external drive space plugged/networked in.

[siamect]

.

.

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Also, although I don't use Word much myself, I understand that there is a versioning feature which means every time you save your document, word will automatically create a new version for you.

.

.

Correct but... Just to be cruel, MS Word versioning saves changes into the same file. Sucks big time and is really so silly that noone really even talks about it.

Not only does it not provide any protection from the scenario of overwriting files but it also make it possible to forget to remove the earlier versions before you deliver the document to whoever... can be painful when the recipient read all the crap you wrote when you started it...

It also remove version that are older than a specific age.... so you cannot trust it at all, set the time wrong in you computer, open you document, save it and bam... there goes your history...

Besides... never use application specific versioning systems. You should use one that doesn't depend on any other applications... I mean thing about it, The versioning in word can only be used in word... So you have to learn at least a second versioning system for the rest of your files anyway.

Martin

[frinch11]

Sorry I just saw the recommendations for automating a system restore.

Firstly, the executable file. Downloading EXE files from other than proven, trusted sources is one of the easiest ways to get your computer hacked - just because it appears to do what you want it to do doesn't mean that is all it is doing - and don't think your antivirus will save you! These things are a hacker's dream come true.

Secondly, the VB script. VB script with WMI is a very powerful tool and a simple script like the one here is fine for running manually, but is not really recommended for sceduled tasks. This script is best viewed as a starting point, a proof of concept rather than the finished article.

When you run a script, you don't really run it, you run the Windows Scripting Host (wscript.exe or cscript.exe) and ths script file is passed to WSH as an argument. This means that the task scheduler will start wscript.exe, get a nice message to say it has started and another to say it has stopped and will never be notified whether the script has been run and will report success whether or not the script ran or not, and whether or not it actually completed successfully. Also, as the scheduled task is run under the system account, you will not see any errors logged on screen either.

If you use a script with a scheduler - or run it remotely for that matter, you need to include some error handling code within the script so error codes can be trapped and fed to a viewable source, for example a log file. My personal favourite is to use WMI's Event Viewer classes to create an Event Log entry much the same way as WIndows itself does.

All this isn't as complicated as it sounds - you just root around Google and cut and paste the relevant snippets from someone else's code - or use a free code generator such as Scriptomatic.

Time to lie down before I hurt myself.

[siamect]

I have used this part of Windows 7 (Windows Back Up) which has options to do incremental backs on regular schedules. I found it (though a good idea) to be slow and ponderous. Incremental back ups took hours when only a few data files had been changed. I switched to a third party product (Acronis, but there are others to choose) and back up has become a pleasure rather than a chore taking a few minutes or seconds. It can be scheduled or even run in continuous back up mode. Just need to remember to have an external drive space plugged/networked in.

Yes and be careful... acronis is using a proprietary format to store your data. The only program that can restore it is... acronis.... so don't use this for data that you may need to restore far in the future... there are better alternatives...

I don't know the format MS is using for their backup program... I have the feeling that it may require you to use the same version to restore... As far as I remember that was the case in win95/98 but I'm not sure.

Martin

[frinch11]

.

.

.

Also, although I don't use Word much myself, I understand that there is a versioning feature which means every time you save your document, word will automatically create a new version for you.

.

.

Correct but... Just to be cruel, MS Word versioning saves changes into the same file. Sucks big time and is really so silly that noone really even talks about it.

Not only does it not provide any protection from the scenario of overwriting files but it also make it possible to forget to remove the earlier versions before you deliver the document to whoever... can be painful when the recipient read all the crap you wrote when you started it...

It also remove version that are older than a specific age.... so you cannot trust it at all, set the time wrong in you computer, open you document, save it and bam... there goes your history...

Besides... never use application specific versioning systems. You should use one that doesn't depend on any other applications... I mean thing about it, The versioning in word can only be used in word... So you have to learn at least a second versioning system for the rest of your files anyway.

Martin

Well that's cleared that one up! Like I said, I have never used it and won't be in the future now either - thanks!