Office Document Data Recovery - This one everyone needs.

You are working on a huge proposal, all day and something happens... A glitch in the lights, the power running out of the laptop, or trying to ignore that MSN message you accidentally click close.

Here is a free tip.. You are really gonna thank me later.

Your office document that you were just working on is gone or corrupted. You're not about to run out and find a data recovery place and spend huge bills for one document but it sure does suck loosing all that you worked on all morning.

Here's a couple quick tips to remember when this happens.

1) Unhide all system files and hidden files.

If you are in Vista you need to do this:

Seeing your hidden files and system files in Vista is not much different than in XP. Here are the step-by-step directions. Remember that system files are hidden for a reason. Be careful!

1. Click the round blue Start thing in the left corner
2. Click Control Panel
3. Click Folder Options
4. Click the View tab
5. Click Show hidden files and folders
6. If you want to see system files as well, unclick Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)
7. Click OK

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial130.html

2) Microsoft Office always has a default saving location. You open this location, your document is now named something else or ending with a .tmp and see if you can open these files using word.

3) Another trick is find where the original document resided, and open up those tmp files or wpd files in notepad. Right-click open -> choose program -> notepad.

4) Lastly, something else that has worked tonnes of times as if by magic has been to open the Microsoft word document or tmp file with OpenOffice.. A free alternative to Microsoft Office

http://www.openoffice.org/.

Recovering your documents is a bit more involved that 4 simple steps so I've enclosed a few technical links here that I'm sure you'll read when this does happen but just remember .. All is not lost!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316951

http://www.amset.info/tips/office-recovery.asp

Cheers,

Rommel
info@recovermypc.com
www.recovermypc.com

Microsoft lost stuff and Sidekick Users See Their Data Vanish Into a Cloud

THis isn't the post I planned for this week, but it's a biggie.. in a bad way.

Sidekick Microsoft Users See Their Data Vanish Into a Cloud

Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger's latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device -- such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos -- that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.

T-Mobile's Official Statement

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=46451

And I like what this guy comments about cloud being only as good as it's backup.

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=46451

What can be learned from this.. Don't trust any single media nor the cloud... Make your own backups.

it's 1 AM and I'm thinking to go back up my gmail accounts...

-Rommel

I know a guy that knows a guy that does computers...

What a loaded statement. You don't know how many times I've heard horror starting with this.

I was at a networking event when I met a woman who took my card and wished she had met me before. She proceeded to tell me the story of getting someone that she knew that fiddled with computers to migrate the data from her old machine to the new one she just purchased. It looks like after she was assured that the job was done and the person was long gone (who she thought did her a favour and for cheap!) that she noticed that entire folders of data that pertained to her home business that she was running were missing on the new machine and gone forever.

As much as she tried, she called him back, to see if he can correct the problem but the files were gone. She now has to start over.

Other times I hear of customers taking their drives to larger Retail shops that offer some computer repair for customers as a service. Machines were formatted according to company policy with no regards to backing up and transferring data.

The latest one, which was actually yesterday had paid for service to backup her data, but after all was said and done, she was only able to find 3 folders of the hundreds that contained family and baby photos.

I'm not saying the computer skills aren't there. I'm sure the techs know enough short-cut keys to never have to touch the mouse. I'm just saying too many times I've heard scary stories where technicians are there to do a job, fix a machine, reload windows... and missing the subtle point where they also must preserve the personal and confidential data of the the person that owns the hardware.

At RecoverMyPc, some of the many difficult tasks we do on a regular basis are saving the email servers of companies, recovering data when other can't, and moving the actual platters of disks in order to recover disk drives (We don't recommend you try this at home).

I think it's safe to say we know a thing or two about computers.

We can help with common problems when your computers or servers don't behave. When it comes to your data, we know how important your information is. Anyone that's dealt with us before knows that we'll do our very best to help where we can.

Call us first, advice is free, especially to friends which you all are, and we'd love to hear from you.

Rommel

info@recovermypc.com
www.recovermypc.com