How to recover an overwritten excel file. How to copy specific files (without folder hierarchy) but not overwrite existing files

Due to the widespread use of Microsoft Office, we are accustomed to storing personal information, business data or educational materials in Word documents, Excel tables or PowerPoint presentations. It is convenient to view such files from hard drive computer, external hard disk, USB flash drives or any other storage medium. However, if you do not take care of the safety of these documents, then storing information in them can be risky.

After all, accidental operations (such as deleting or formatting), viruses, software failure or hardware may lead to loss of the document. The data stored in lost documents is often very important. This is why many users are interested in the question: “ How to recover a Word document?“.

In this article we will look at several options for restoring a Word document: how to use the built-in Microsoft Word functions, and using third party programs for data recovery.

A little about Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word probably the most popular program from Microsoft package Office, only Microsoft Excel can compete with it.

Just imagine, today a huge number of versions of Word for Windows have already been released: Microsoft Word 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 and finally Microsoft Word 2016. It’s hard to even remember which other program has such a long service life. and a successful history.

The most popular among other versions were Word 2007 and Word 2010. But with the release of the latter, the Word versions 2016, users increasingly have questions about how to restore a Word 2016 document. It is this version of the program that we will talk about.

Autosave

Have you ever been in a situation where you accidentally closed a document you've been working on for a long time without saving it? Or when the power went out while working on a document or the computer turned off for some other reason?

For most users, this situation leads to panic. But fortunately, Word 2016 has a built-in document autosave feature that makes it easy to restore the last autosaved version of a file. In Microsoft Office this function activated by default with an autosave time of 10 minutes, but it can be changed if desired.

For settings this parameter go to menu File > Options > Preservation.

This feature means that Word will automatically save the document after a specified period of time. And when the user accidentally closes a document without saving it, it will be possible to restore the last automatically saved version of the file available in the specified autorecovery directory (which can also be configured).

How AutoSave a Word Document Works

The timer is activated after any change is made to the document, as well as after automatic or manual saving. After the set time has elapsed, it will be saved. a new version file.

If you save the file by clicking the button Save(Shift+F12) or using the menu File > Save, the autosave timer will stop until the next changes are made to the file.

Cancel a previous operation

When editing or making changes to Word documents, some users prefer to use a combination Ctrl+Z or the undo arrow to cancel the previous operation. This is very convenient way return the document to its previous state. But this method It has limited quantity cancellation operations. Therefore, restoring the last saved version of the file will be the preferred recovery method.

How to recover a resaved document

Click menu File in the upper left corner, a window will open as in the previous image. Look in the section Document Management, where all automatically saved versions of files are listed, sorted by saving time.

Just click on the required version, and it will open in a new window in which you can select Comparison Restore.

Of course, you can find automatically saved versions of the file on your computer in the previously mentioned auto-recovery directory and, by double-clicking on the desired version of the file, repeat the one specified in previous paragraph procedure.

How to recover an unsaved Word document

It's worse if you close a document without saving, in which many changes have been made, in addition to previous automatically saved versions on the tab File are not displayed. In this case, the only option to find the latest automatically saved version of the file is to look in the folder on the computer where you have configured automatic saving files.

If you do not remember in which folder you configured automatic saving of Word files, you can look at the path to this directory in Word settings: File > Options > Preservation > Data directory for autorecovery. The autosaved version file has the format .asd.

After required file will be found, just double click on it and open with using Word. The file will open in a new window in which you can select Comparison(with the current version of the file) or Restore.

How to recover a deleted Word document

The document recovery methods described above are very convenient for Word users. But they will not work if the automatically saved document file is lost as a result virus attack, disk formatting or accidental deletion, or for any other similar reason. And if the automatically saved file is missing, and the Word document is lost - what to do in this situation?

You can use one of the recovery programs Microsoft files Office. For example, Hetman Office Recovery.

After downloading and installing Hetman Office Recovery, run the program and you will be prompted to select the drive from which you want to recover the file.

Double-click on the disk from which you want to recover the file and follow the next steps of the recovery wizard:

• Select required type analysis: Quick Scan or Full Analysis;
• Specify the criteria for searching files: file type, size and creation date (if necessary);
• Click Further.

After this, the program will scan your storage media and show deleted files, which can be viewed using preview and save the recovered files in a way convenient for you.

Now you know how to recover a Word document: unsaved or accidentally closed, accidentally deleted or lost as a result of a computer failure. Situation with loss of documents Word more shouldn't be a problem for you.

The File History utility in Windows gets its name from its ability to restore older versions of a file. This feature is part of all programs Reserve copy, although it is often called "Restore". Although the idea is the same: from the backup archive you remove old version file. The File History feature makes it easy this process and working with files in general.

In order to return the old version of the file from backup disk, you need to follow these steps.

• If need to replace current version new: select "Recover" and then "Replace file in target application." The current file is replaced with the backup copy.
• In order to save both the current version and the restored backup, you must click “Restore” and select “Restore to”. Select the target folder for the recovered file.
• To view archival copy: Click Open. The file has not been recovered, but you can view its contents to see if it contains the information you need.

4. Then click close Properties window when done. If there are no previous versions, you will see the message "There are no previous versions available after step 2. This means that the file is new and was not copied, that the file has not changed, or that backup copy this file does not exist. The File History utility is not a replacement for recovering a file from the Recycle Bin; if you delete a file, you need to restore it from the Recycle Bin.

File History only works with files in the folders you selected when setting up the utility.

Video: How to recover an unsaved or damaged Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint document

Stop recording at HDD. If you notice that you accidentally deleted a file or overwrote another file, don't save anything else to that hard drive. Don't run programs. If new data is written to the disk, it may prevent the deleted file from being recovered. If you don't write anything new down, your chances of successful recovery will increase.

Download the free PhotoRec program on another computer or hard drive. It's very effective free program. She's not very pretty, but she can do what she can do expensive programs recovery. It can be downloaded completely free of charge from www.cgsecurity.org as part of the TestDisk utility.

• PhotoRec is available in versions for Windows, OS X and Linux.
• Download the program to another hard drive so you don't overwrite the file you want to recover. You can download PhotoRec to another hard drive, but it is better to use a separate computer.

Insert a blank USB drive into your computer. It is best to use a drive that has enough space for both the program and the files you want to recover. This is because restoring a file to the same drive where it was damaged may overwrite the file, causing it to not recover correctly.

• PhotoRec takes up only 5 megabytes and will fit on any USB drive.

Unzip the downloaded program file. TestDisk will be archived in ZIP (Windows) or BZ2 (Mac) format. Unzip the TestDisk folder.

Copy the TestDisk folder to the flash drive. This will allow you to run PhotoRec from the USB drive.

Insert the flash drive into the computer that contains the damaged file(s). Open the TestDisk folder on the flash drive.

Launch PhotoRec. The command line will appear on the screen.

• Move up, down, left and right using the arrows ↓ ← → and use the buttons ↵Enter And ⏎ Return to make a choice.

Select the drive where you want to restore the file. The drives will simply be numbered, so you will need to pay attention to their size to figure out which drive you need.

• If your hard drive has many partitions (such as C: and D:), they will not be visible until you select the drive itself.

Select the file type you want to search for. By default, PhotoRec will try to recover all files whose format it supports. You can speed up the process by specifying which files you are interested in.

• You can change the file type from the File Opt menu.
• While in the File Opt menu, deselect all files in the list by pressing S. Then go through the list and select the files you need.

Select required section disk. You will have to recognize the sections by size. Some of them may be signed.

Select the file system type. If you are on Linux, choose ext2/ext3. If you are using Windows or OS X, select Other.

Decide where to look for the file. Your choice may be determined by how the file was deleted:

• Free - Select this option if you have manually deleted a file or overwritten another file.
• Whole - select this option if the file was lost as a result hard mistakes disk.

When copying, users sometimes make a serious mistake - they replace the file with important information other data. As a result, the overwritten file becomes inaccessible and cannot be returned. You can restore an earlier version of a document, drawing, or other type of data, but you will have to work with it to do so. Windows settings or use third party applications.

Restoring a previous version

If you had system protection enabled, you can quickly restore the previous version through properties. First, make sure that system protection is activated and Windows automatically creates backups from which you can restore data:

If the protection is turned off, activate it for the future so that you can quickly return it if necessary. previous version data. How it works in practice:

All you have to do is select the desired file by modification date and click “OK” to restore it. The lack of data backups can be explained by several reasons:

• The System Protection function is disabled.
• You are trying to restore system data that stores user or system information (these are not backed up by default).
• No changes have been made to the file or folder.
• Backup data is deleted among temporary data CCleaner program or other cleaning utility.

Remember that backups are not stored forever: they are constantly updated, old data is erased, replaced by new information. Therefore, you can only restore the version of the file that was saved recently. To ensure that your backup is preserved, set up data archiving using the built-in Backup and Restore tool.

Recovering Overwritten Data

If system protection was turned off, then you have another chance to return the replaced file - use the universal HEX editor WinHex, which studies and changes all types of data, restoring erased or replaced information.

The program can be installed or run in portable mode. If the replaced file was stored on your hard drive, it is recommended to use portable version editor, since during installation new data will be written to the hard drive, which may overwrite necessary information, which will prevent it from being restored.

After the recovery is complete, go to the folder to which you specified the path by clicking the “Output folder” button. Inside you will see all the data that was recovered. File names will be replaced with digital values, so you will have to search for a document or drawing based on its content. If the program detects several versions of a file, it will restore all of them. Select the appropriate file and move it to another folder so as not to lose it.

Pavel Mikhailov

When Apple company introduced Leopard with a feature that allows you to restore personal files users deleted at various points in time were all in awe. Many people still do not know that Windows Vista also has a similar feature, in it you can also restore deleted files or their previous versions.

How it works

The Microsoft Vista operating system allows you to recover deleted or previous versions files and folders through the use of special recovery points that are created by the System Restore service. This service, using information from the last created recovery point, allows you to get back some deleted or replaced data.

The service uses a certain amount of storage space to store recovery points. free space your hard drive. The points are overwritten as this volume is filled. A larger number of points respectively occupies a larger volume. You can manually adjust it, but at a minimum you need at least 300MB. Anyway system recovery will not take up more than 15% of the total capacity of your hard drive. It should also be noted that the service does not work on drives with file system FAT32.

Check availability on your hard drive free space to 300MB and then enable the system recovery service or make sure it is enabled. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click the "Start" button;
2. Select "Computer", click on it right click mouse and select "Properties";
3. Login to " Extra options System" and then select the "System Protection" tab;
4. A check mark next to the drive indicates that system recovery is enabled for it. Check the boxes for all required disks or partitions.

In our case, recovery is enabled only for drive C.

Once you have enabled System Restore, it is recommended that you manually create a restore point. To do this, you don't have to restart your computer, just follow these steps:

You don't have to do this all the time. After you have enabled System Restore, Windows Vista will automatically create a restore point every day. Also, a restore point is created in the event of each system event, for example, when installing a program or driver.

Now you can recover your deleted files and folders. Please note that the sooner you enable system recovery, the more likely you are to recover your data. It is almost impossible to recover a file deleted before the service was enabled. You can only try to do this using various recovery programs, and even then only if other data has not yet been written to the place of your files.

After this, your recovered files and/or folders will appear in the place where you dragged your data.

If you forgot where your deleted file or folder was

If you forgot where your deleted file or yours remote folder, then you can simply select the disk on which they were located and, right-clicking on it, go to its “Properties”, and then to “Previous Versions”.