I need computer help ASAP, please help!

[-Orgasmatron-]

Basically, I emailed myself some work from college, opened it from the email into OpenOffice, spent 3 hours finishing the work, then saved it, closed OpenOffice and attempted to email it to myself. Upon realising I wasn't sure were it was saved I went back to OpenOffice to check, I go into recent documents in OpenOffice and I try to open it it says it doesn't exist and it's saved in a temporary internet file I can't find.

Is there anyway to get my work back or have I just flush 3 hours of work down the toilet? This is a big pain in the ass because this work is in for tommorow afternoon and I have lessons all day. Also it's 3:20AM, so I don't really have the time or energy to do it again.

So yea, someone please help.

 

[Nincompoop]

Have you tried searching for it? With windows search or whatever it's called.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

Good idea.

I've tried turning hidden folders and but I still can't get to the place it's supposedly in. But what I'm wondering is, OpenOffice comes up with a message saying it doesn't exist when I try to open it from the 'Recent Documents' menu, what does this mean?

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

Tried searching for it, no results, sorry for the double post but I need some help here, I'm pretty much F'd in the A if I can't retrieve it.

 

[Nincompoop]

Good idea.

I've tried turning hidden folders and but I still can't get to the place it's supposedly in. But what I'm wondering is, OpenOffice comes up with a message saying it doesn't exist when I try to open it from the 'Recent Documents' menu, what does this mean?

What OS do you have? And what OS did the computer at school have?

Don't get your hopes up, it's not really like I know what I'm talking about, but I am searching on google. There appear to be some problems with Mac.

 

[Nincompoop]

Tried searching for it, no results, sorry for the double post but I need some help here, I'm pretty much F'd in the A if I can't retrieve it.

Have you tried to open it with another program? Like wordpad or notepad?... I don't know if that's even possible, but you could try to right click the document on recent documents and open with something else.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

Good idea.

I've tried turning hidden folders and but I still can't get to the place it's supposedly in. But what I'm wondering is, OpenOffice comes up with a message saying it doesn't exist when I try to open it from the 'Recent Documents' menu, what does this mean?

What OS do you have? And what OS did the computer at school have?

Don't get your hopes up, it's not really like I know what I'm talking about, but I am searching on google. There appear to be some problems with Mac.

Windows Vista.

It's nothing to do with the college computers though, this all happened at home. Here's what happened.

-From college I email myself some work
-I open work from email attachtment and finish it at home
-After finish I hit 'Save' thinking it will just save to My Docs
-I close Open Office without realising it saved to a Temporary File
-I go to my email to try and email it back to myself at college but can't find it
-I open Open Office and click on it in 'Recent Documents' but a message comes up saying it doesn't exist

So now I'm completely and totally ballsed and it looks like I'm gunna be pulling an all nighter to do it all again. Which sucks, 'cus sleeping ain't to bad.

From what I can gather, you said you opened it from the email, right? The really important detail here is: Did you download the attachment from the email in a location that you chose or did Open Office launch automatically from the attachment?

If it's the latter, it means Windows put it in a temp folder in C:\Temp\ [something] or it's possible it was put somewhere in C:\Users\ [Your username]\App Data\Local\Temp\
(Note that App Data is a hidden folder and Users is what it's called in Vista/7. It's called Documents and Settings in XP.

I didn't choose were to save it from the email, I just opened it in Open Office and let it do its thing. When I go to 'Recent Documents' in Open Office it says it is in the temporary folder like you say, but I can't find this folder in explorer even with hidden files and folders viewable. Does this mean it's already deleted itself? Is there some way I can revive it if it has deleted itself? I checked the recycling bin and there's nothing in there.

I'll have another stab and trying to get into this temporary folder. I appriciate the help by the way Mr.Tea and Nincompoop.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

Okay well I got into the file it says it's in and it's nowhere to be seen.

It did save, I remember clicking save before I closed it, ontop of that Open Office auto saves every couple of minutes. So what could of happened?

 

[Nincompoop]

snip

I read something about the possibility that antivirus software can delete files gotten from email and the saved. It's a long shot, but you could look in your antivirus vault, if you have one.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

snip

I read something about the possibility that antivirus software can delete files gotten from email and the saved. It's a long shot, but you could look in your antivirus vault, if you have one.

My AVG always consults me before doing anything, it's actually pretty ineffective half the time.

Anyway, looks like I'm buggered. It's 4AM so I'm gunna take 5 minutes to decide between suicide and starting it all again and we'll go from there.

Let this be a lesson to us all, if you open a document from an email remember to click 'Save As' and put it into 'My Docs', because clicking simple 'Save' will only end in disaster.

 

[Nincompoop]

Anyway, looks like I'm buggered. It's 4AM so I'm gunna take 5 minutes to decide between suicide and starting it all again and we'll go from there.

Let this be a lesson to us all, if you open a document from an email remember to click 'Save As' and put it into 'My Docs', because clicking simple 'Save' will only end in disaster.

Ye, I always save at a specific destination, for this specific reason. I'm sorry for your rather inconvenient ordeal, but if you remember what you wrote in those extra 3 pages, it might not take as long as feared.

Good luck champ =).

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

I'm typing faster than usual and aren't structuring things as well as I could, but I hope I don't confuse more than help haha.

Also, forget C:\Windows\Temp, documents don't go there. And I made an Edit that I'll copy/paste here:

If you didn't specify "Save As" in Open Office, it probably saved it back in the temp folder from which it opened it, but if Recent Documents can't find it, it's possible the temp data was flushed. (I have no idea under what conditions the various temp folders actually get flushed, but I'm just saying it's possible.)

You should hunt around in the "App Data\Local\Temp" folders, possibly in one related to the Email application you use or there could also be something in Open Office's own App Data folder (Look for it in both App Data\Local and App Data\Roaming; It should be called Open Office or it could be inside another folder for "Sun Microsystems" or Just "Sun".

If it was actually deleted, you could always try Restoration [http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.HTML], which looks for files that have been marked as deleted but haven't yet been written over by other data. Don't search for the name you gave you document though, it might just have a gibberish temp name like "i4jdel0" or something... instead, search for the extension Open Office uses like .sxw or .doc if you exported it as a Microsoft-Compatible document.

I've downloaded that Restoration thing, sounds like it could be worth a shot, but it says I need to log on in an administrator account to run it and my account is the only one on the computer, as far as I know I am the admin? Wouldn't mind helping me out here would you? Thanks man.

 

[Cain_Zeros]

You opened it from the email, then saved it to it's default location. It didn't touch the hard drive at your school. Did you keep the email? If so, open it up again, open the file, and see what happened. It might have saved your changes there, you might be screwed.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

You opened it from the email, then saved it to it's default location. It didn't touch the hard drive at your school. Did you keep the email? If so, open it up again, open the file, and see what happened. It might have saved your changes there, you might be screwed.

No, I emailed it to my home computer from college, finished it here at home, then tried to email it back to college only for me to find out it has dissapeared.

And I worked it out Mr.Tea, but no luck, no file with 'ODT' in was found. It ain't happening.

Thanks for trying though everyone.

 

[Spore]

I'm typing faster than usual and aren't structuring things as well as I could, but I hope I don't confuse more than help haha.

Also, forget C:\Windows\Temp, documents don't go there. And I made an Edit that I'll copy/paste here:

If you didn't specify "Save As" in Open Office, it probably saved it back in the temp folder from which it opened it, but if Recent Documents can't find it, it's possible the temp data was flushed. (I have no idea under what conditions the various temp folders actually get flushed, but I'm just saying it's possible.)

You should hunt around in the "App Data\Local\Temp" folders, possibly in one related to the Email application you use or there could also be something in Open Office's own App Data folder (Look for it in both App Data\Local and App Data\Roaming; It should be called Open Office or it could be inside another folder for "Sun Microsystems" or Just "Sun".

If it was actually deleted, you could always try Restoration [http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.HTML], which looks for files that have been marked as deleted but haven't yet been written over by other data. Don't search for the name you gave you document though, it might just have a gibberish temp name like "i4jdel0" or something... instead, search for the extension Open Office uses like .sxw or .doc if you exported it as a Microsoft-Compatible document.

I've downloaded that Restoration thing, sounds like it could be worth a shot, but it says I need to log on in an administrator account to run it and my account is the only one on the computer, as far as I know I am the admin? Wouldn't mind helping me out here would you? Thanks man.

try running the restoration tool in administrator mode. just right-click on the icon and select "run as administrator"... saved me millions of times when I was on vista or if all else fails, try some compatibility modes in properties, most likely XP SP2/3

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

try running the restoration tool in administrator mode. just right-click on the icon and select "run as administrator"... saved me millions of times when I was on vista or if all else fails, try some compatibility modes in properties, most likely XP SP2/3

Yea, I've done it and searched files with 'ODT', got no results.

 

[Spore]

well, not trying to be an arse, but with my limited knowledge of computers I'd say your pretty much stuffed...
well, if noone else comes up with a working sollution, here's a little tip: don't freak out, and just try to finish it during classes or pull an all-nighter an finish it now, with you taking 3 hours first time you should be able to finish it in about an hour the second time around...

good luck mate