how to check what happened to this file?

MarcinG

Hi.

I have laptop with windows vista on it.
It is connected to internet and there are 2-3 usb discs i'm connecting to it.

On the desktop i had a important file called something.xls which recently disappeared. Last time i used it was about 5 days ago.
In the mean time i deleted couple of big files and uninstalled some games (i guess 2-5gb?) and empty bin afterwards. bin size is set to around 7gb disc has 2 partitions 100gb each and there is at least 1/4-1/3 free space on each of them at all the time.

It is still in excel recent files but it won't open (asking me to make sure that it is still there has not been moved etc.).
Nothing in the bin. I tried to find it on laptop and usb discs using windows search tool - looking for "something.*, something.xls and *.xls in case that i changed name by accident - nothing...
I downloaded "ashampoo undeleter" program for recovering deleted files and it found no XLS file deleted recently.
It only found something like temp file or sth? strange name.xls and inside this file there is one cell with name of missing file and nothing more.
This file is quite important for me anyone could help me?

file is very small ( 3 page xls file no more than single screen of data on each page - i guess 100kb?

uch

Try using ontrack easy recovery if you can get it, this always works for me

chin_grin

uch wrote: »

Try using ontrack easy recovery if you can get it, this always works for me

Or Recuva might find it.

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

MarcinG

they all seems to be rocovering same file $R5TGWQS.xls which i guess is just temp file and after recovery excel doesn't recognize it at all.
no sign of proper file ;/

Ps. ony thing that crosses my mind is that i changed name (including extension) of the file and then deleted it as lets say "etwt" in the name instead of proper one.
So i wanted to find file consisting a certain string of letters instead of looking after its name. But vista doesn't seems to have such ability?

yoyo

MarcinG wrote: »

they all seems to be rocovering same file $R5TGWQS.xls which i guess is just temp file and after recovery excel doesn't recognize it at all.
no sign of proper file ;/

Ps. ony thing that crosses my mind is that i changed name (including extension) of the file and then deleted it as lets say "etwt" in the name instead of proper one.
So i wanted to find file consisting a certain string of letters instead of looking after its name. But vista doesn't seems to have such ability?

The $R5TGWQS.xls is the autosaved file I think it only contains new edits and can be used by Excel to patch the file on crash. I find PhotoREC is one of the better recovery solutions. But if you accidentally removed the file extension and deleted it recovery may be a bit harder, I would try PhotoREC anyways, download it onto another disk and let it recover what it can onto theother disk

Nick

MarcinG

yoyo wrote: »

The $R5TGWQS.xls is the autosaved file I think it only contains new edits and can be used by Excel to patch the file on crash. I find PhotoREC is one of the better recovery solutions. But if you accidentally removed the file extension and deleted it recovery may be a bit harder, I would try PhotoREC anyways, download it onto another disk and let it recover what it can onto theother disk

Nick

can you serch file by its contents (like name or something which is mentioned within document) rather than name?

edit: what are the chances that file is already overwritten? would it find it anyway just in unrecoverable state? or it wouldn't find it at all?

yoyo

MarcinG wrote: »

can you serch file by its contents (like name or something which is mentioned within document) rather than name?

edit: what are the chances that file is already overwritten? would it find it anyway just in unrecoverable state? or it wouldn't find it at all?

Theres a change it is overwritten, although if the hard disk is large with plenty of free space this isn't as likely, its still possible though, without an extension I think recover would be very difficult, although I think PhotoREC may be able to recover files minus an extension in certain circulstances, run recovery on your desktop folder with photorec on a different drive and see what it recovers,

Nick

MarcinG

no xls files in recovery options (photorec)?

yoyo

MarcinG wrote: »

no xls files in recovery options (photorec)?

There is, PhotoREC (Unlike the name suggests) supports hundreds of file types, see here

Nick

MarcinG

yoyo wrote: »

There is, PhotoREC (Unlike the name suggests) supports hundreds of file types, see here

Nick

hmm maybe they are not in alphabetical order i downloaded 6.13 version and under *.X** i have: x3f,xcf,xfi,xm,xsv,xptand xv files only...

yoyo

MarcinG wrote: »

hmm maybe they are not in alphabetical order i downloaded 6.13 version and under *.X** i have: x3f,xcf,xfi,xm,xsv,xptand xv files only...

Choose Doc:


Nick

MarcinG

it running and running (3hrs+ so far and another 3 estimated)....
found few dozens of XLS so far but they all have strange names like they are some sort of backup/temp files....

yoyo

MarcinG wrote: »

it running and running (3hrs+ so far and another 3 estimated)....
found few dozens of XLS so far but they all have strange names like they are some sort of backup/temp files....

Any joy?

Nick

MarcinG

yoyo wrote: »

Any joy?

Nick

yep.


Thank you very much I owe you some beer ;P
It found some older version but most important stuff is in it.
Ps other soft could also find it as my file was called f93747520.xls or something like that previously i didn't bother to open such files.

yoyo

MarcinG wrote: »

yep.


Thank you very much I owe you some beer ;P
It found some older version but most important stuff is in it.
Ps other soft could also find it as my file was called f93747520.xls or something like that previously i didn't bother to open such files.

Brilliant, Paypal details sent to PM, jk man glad to have helped

Nick