AutoRecover failed

[Shinano]

I work in a corporate environment with XP as the OS running Excel 2003.

A couple of days ago our system administrator needed to check something on
my computer, and forced my laptop to shut down by holding down the power
button... Not exactly my choice, but that was what she did.

I had been working on the same Excel workbook all day and lost data.

Our system administrator said that Excel would automatically recover the
files that she had forced to close, but when I restarted I never got the
AutoRecover pan, and even worse, I never recovered the data I lost...

I would hate for this to happen again, and so I am wondering how to prevent
it from happening again. AutoRecover is checked under Tools > Options > Save,
and yet I did not get the expected AutoRecover Pan.

My question is what went wrong here? Is there any connection to Excel only
running SP1, version 11.6355.6260 and Windows XP only running SP 1?

I know that it is like finding a needle in a hay stack, but any advice/hint
is appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Rusty McLouth]

ds glib.Well not to sound as if your problem isn't significant but the
obvious answer is...do not let anyone have access until you have saved the
work. Any manager should understand. I have had similar problems and was
never able to get a helpful response.

Sorry if this soun

 

[Jon Peltier]

It was irresponsible for a sysadmin to just shut down your computer in this
way without allowing you to save your work and shut down your programs. (My
first impulse was to say unbelievably irresponsible, but I have encountered
enough irresponsible admins to leave off "unbelievably".) Even with
autorecovery (which is not 100% reliable), you lose data and you lose any
application settings you may have changed or add-ins you may have installed
during your session.

If Excel didn't restore the file, I know of no other way to recover it.

- Jon

 

[Dave Peterson]

I've never seen autorecovery fail, but I sure wouldn't depend on it either.
Even if it worked, I still could lose the last x minutes of changes (since the
last autorecovery file was created).

And if that person did that without asking or without a very good reason, I'd
make sure my boss and hers knew that you lost lots of data and time.

Jan Karel Pieterse wrote an addin (works in any version) called AutoSafe (note
spelling).

It doesn't overwrite the existing workbook when it saves. It saves to a user
selectable folder. And when it's done, it either deletes these backups (or puts
them in the recycle bin). And the user can always restore the backups from the
recycle bin.

But if excel closes abnormally (windows/excel crashes--or the system admin walks
by), that backup file is still there waiting for you to start excel again--much
like autorecovery.

http://www.jkp-ads.com/Download.htm
(look for AutoSafe.zip, not autosafeVBE.zip, for your purposes.)

Maybe wearing belt and suspenders is a good thing??

 

[Jon Peltier]

I use Jan Karel's AutoSafe utility, and I don't use Excel's native
Autosave/Recovery, because neither works as well as JK's. I found that the
autorecovered files weren't as useful as the AutoSafe backup files, and I
like having a running version history of the files in the recycle bin.

I've found that when Excel crashes, the recovered files Excel builds from
the heap are pretty reliable, and pretty much up to the minute. However,
this only works if the computer itself isn't turned off.

What an unforgivable thing to do. At least use Windows' shut down procedure,
which gives you a chance to save your work before closing each app.

- Jon