Lost Files

Most of us have been there. We’ve been working on a file or set of files for a few hours (or even days). You’ve finally finished your work on a file, so you save it. Next morning you go to the PC and look for the file, and you can’t find it! You’re sure you left it on your desktop, so you have another look…but it’s not there. You check a few more folders in your desktop.

Nothing!

You start to feel the sweat popping up on the back of your neck. Is someone playing a prank on you? Did you delete it by accident? You check some more, but you begin to realize that the file you worked on for so long has vanished.

What do you do? Start again from the beginning? Well, you might have to, but it’s too early for that just yet.

• Don’t panic. The more you panic, the longer it will take to find the file you are looking for.
  

• Check the Recycle Bin. Did you delete it by accident? If so, it might be there.
  

• Think – are you on the right PC? If you have more than one, perhaps you were working on the file on the other computer. This is quite likely.
  

• Carry out a search for the file using the search facility on the opening system. (In Windows, click on the Start menu and then click on Search). It helps if you know the name you gave the file (hopefully you made it descriptive and unique).

• If you make a lot of use of a network, check other PCs on the network. Do a search.
  

• One handy tip: sometimes programs “remember” where they saved the last document; so open the program you used to create your lost document and click Save As. Make a note of the folder it is saving to; you might find that your lost file is there. (Click Cancel to leave the Save As dialog box)
  

• Think again. Did you save the file onto some sort of removable memory (such as USB flash memory)?

• Do you access to any undelete or unerase utilities (such as Norton UnErase)? These utilities can search your drive, looking for files you have previously deleted (or that were deleted by another user or maliciously deleted by a virus). The sooner you discover files are missing, the sooner you can let the utility loose, and the greater chance you have that the file hasn’t been overwritten yet so that it can be recovered. If you don’t have an access to an undelete utility, consider the value of your data. Does it justify the cost of buying the software?
  

• If all else fails, go to your backups and recover your most recent copy.