Lost or modified file

[kobe]

Please help! I am self employed and since April this year I have been colating my income and expenditure on an excel spread sheet. Today I inadvertantly saved an empty excel file to the same name as my income / expenditure file ( I don't know what I did ) but all I know is that when I open it up now it's blank - I did not delete it - I did something in save as - but I will admit I was distracted by a phone call and quickly shut the file - I cannot belive it is lost - as in - completely wiped - I hope it is in some obsure hidden file somewhere - Please there is months of work in there some of which I will never be able to remember can someone please help me retreive it - I am in bits Thank you in advance of any answers

[Panic Button]

An answer in this question might help.

I have no idea if it is good advice. Perhaps someone else who knows how the giblets of a computer works can advise.

[Panic Button]

oops. forgot the link

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Technology/Comp uters/Question477395.html

[vehelpfulguy]

Just a suggestion for the future.

If you have an important file like this Excel file then do as follows.

On your hard disk create a folder called "backup".

Every so often (or before you make any major changes) open the Excel file, and save it in the "backup" folder with a different name (I usually stick a number on the end 0001, 0002, 0003 and so on). The exit from Excel.

You now have the file "backed up" into another directory.

Now you can open the original Excel file in the knowledge that if anything goes wrong you always have a fairly recent backup.

As well as that, you should back up ALL important files to a CD or DVD on a regular basis (or at least to an extrnal hard drive).

Then if your computer crashes, or is stolen, then at least you can recover all your personal files.

I know this does not help your current situation, but you should get into the habit of making regular backups of ALL important files.

You should think to yourself, if the worst happened, and my computer crashed or was stolen, or the house flooded or whatever, I could still recover all my personal files.

[riskman]

Open XL - Go to Tools - Options - Save this will tell you where your auto backup file is (assuming you have auto backup switched on). Make a note of the location. Go to Open and work your way to the Folder - if you are lucky there will be a file with >yourfilename~1< - open as normal and this should be the last autosaved version unless you have already saved the blank one again. Sometimes there will be more than 1 file e.g. >yourfilename~2< etc.

Best of luck...