Lost Word file recovered as .tmp file, but cant open

Hi folks,

the OH was working on a word document this morning and saved it to an external drive. When she plugs in the external drive, a message appears saying ' H: There Is a Problem with This Drive. Scan the Drive Now and Fix It'

Her file is not visible when I searched the drive. SO I downloaded data recovery software, and the file was found in the .tmp folder. I saved it to my PC but when I try and open it with Word, it appears as pages of small squares instead of the original text.

She is afraid that if she runs a scan on the external H drive, that she will lose the original document she was working on, which she has spent 5 hours on.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Doodah7

It sounds like the file might be corrupted. Download Recuva and point it at the drive and see if that helps.

Alternatively, make a COPY of the .tmp file and rename it to .docx and try opening the file.

Another alternative, try opening the file in Notes and see does it display in plain text. You could then copy and paste back into word and then re-format the document.

Personally and I know it's too late now, but I would always save to a PC hard drive first and copy to an external later. Less chance of something going wrong and there is a backup.

Edit: You got me Googling:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_win10-mso_2016/how-to-recover-tmp-files/36b39709-20d6-4b90-b4b6-926733e72212

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/word/recover-lost-unsaved-corrupted-document

ozmo

if its a word document you have:
you could try make a copy of the file (somewhere on the pc - not the external harddrive) and make sure it has a .doc or .docx file extension - and try again to open it then in word.


But its likely this is the temp file and not the saved file - you can follow this to convert the temp file to a word document:

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/its/help/faq?faqid=1643


issue was probably caused by removing the drive before the file had finished saving - it can take a few seconds to write the file out completely to the drive even after it says its saved.

davo2001

A .tmp file is temporary file, used for editting the document, it's not the actualy file you are looking for. A .tmp file is created every time you open an office file and then deleted once the main file is closed.

ozmo

davo2001 wrote: »

A .tmp file is temporary file, used for editting the document, it's not the actualy file you are looking for. A .tmp file is created every time you open an office file and then deleted once the main file is closed.

Yeah correct- tmp not ideal but if he is sure its all he has then above link may be able convert the temp to a doc file.

misstearheus

I have wasted a lot of my time and effort over past few weeks trying to restore stuff with a few different Recovery Apps with zero success.

If there's any way at all to try restore the File through Word rather than anything else I'd try that route. I know there used to be a great way in Word Options to bring back old even un-named Files that you may have been working on and closed accidentally before getting a chance to save it, it brought back old Word Files every time for me.