MS Word: Has it ever happened to you?

Question

I am working on a Word doc (Word 2000 on a XP OS). And I've lost my file twice. This is how it happens: I work on my file and I save it regularly with the backup option enabled. And for no apparent reason, I save my file and suddenly, a message appears telling me it cannot save the file because it couldn't find it and it shuts the file. When I check in the Explorer to open that file again, it has disappeared. How weird? First time I thought I had probably accidentally deleted it, while I couldn't recall doing such an idiot thing. The second time, I'm sure I haven't.
I've run my Antivirus (Norton) and it doesn't find anything suspicious.
I've searched the whole drive for my file, and it's not there.
The recup.doc it created is crypted.
The file was on an external drive connected to the PC through a USB port.
The external drive still has some available space (122 Go)
And it is securely connected to the PC.
Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I would suspect that Norton is catching a virus that you DO have or your installation of MS Word or MS Office has been corrupted. Try reinstalling.

Answer 2

Something that readily springs to mind is whether you have 'Allow fast saves' and 'Allow background saves' enabled. (You can find these in Tools > Options > Save in Word 2003. I don't know if it's located in another area of Word 2000.)

If these are enabled, your computer continually makes temporary copies of the file that you're working on ... until such time as you turn off Word ... or it turns itself off, as seems to be happening in your case. Of course, doing this results in the loss of data.

Take a look and see if you can alter the options for saving and see how that goes.

Best of luck.

Answer 3

This usually occurs with DOS (Disk Operating System -
on the disk, this drives hardware, ROM and RAM.
ROM memory should not be constantly ready for
writing to memory constantly (Read Only Memory)
although read only it can be written to and read,
but cannot be empty, but written with digits as null.
Saving to the ROM disk is for occasional and file
saving.
Also if you save alot the virus system will start to
think a virus is out putting data without verification
in Vista is brings up the Allow/Don't Allow screen
instead of just denying it.
ROM cannot be constantly (virtually over-) written
to. It will start to slow down. This also depends on
the Bus transfers (usually 16Bit and 32Bit together).
It is also a known bug in MicroSoft Works Word
Processor, Office and desktop suite (default) and
there is updates on the http://download.microsoft.com/
website.
Kind Regards.
Solarentric.

Answer 4

I think it may have happened to me... I think recup.doc is like a memory or data , or it has something to do with the way Word works. Maybe the USB port is bent or somethings not right inside the port. That happened to me. The USB's white part got pulled out. Try doing the same operation at your local library, your friends computer, or another one of your computer/laptop.

Answer 5

That is weird.

You should have an anti-spyware solution on your computer. I recommend that you go to http://www.download.com and get AD-AWARE and SpyBot Search & Destory. Install, run, update and scan your computer with both programs.

But maybe you should SAVE the file on your hard drive. When you are DONE, copy it to the external drive.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 6

I would suspect you are losing your connection to the USB drive. Always use the local hard disk when editing any type of document and only copy to the USB drive when you are done.

Answer 7

save the file to your hd while editing it
then after your done save as it to your usb drive
the usb drive wasnt being used enough and probably went on standby