It's not a good idea to work directly off removable media. This is known to
be a primary cause of document corruption. You should instead, copy the file
to your local drive, work with it there, and then copy it back to your USB
drive. (This is easy enough to do, place the file on your Desktop and then
when finished, right-click the file and use Send To/<drive letter> Removable
Disk. Then drag the document to your Recycle Bin if you no longer need it on
your Desktop.)
In regards to the error you encountered, the reason for the recommendation
to not work directly off of removable media is due to the temp files Word
(and all applications) generate. Some are stored locally and others are
stored in the same folder as the file. The temp files are created and
deleted as need. Word uses internal pointers to keep them all straight and
if Word can't find a temp file, for example if it perceives the connection
to your USB has been closed, if it was closed because you removed the USB
drive, or if it wasn't seated properly and the connection was loose, etc,
then you can encounter various strange errors.
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook
Word FAQ:
http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine:
http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site:
http://mvps.org/