Word crashes saving to USB storage

[Asad Abidi]

This has happened with me twice, once in a critical application. Once it
happened with a USB hard drive, the other time on a flash drive.

I open a document in Word, make changes, and save it. Word crashes on the
save, giving an error message like "Drive cannot be accessed", then offering
to save it elsewhere. When I select that option, Word crashes and shuts down.
It leaves behind 0 byte ~*.doc temporary files.

Has anyone else seen this?

 

[TF]

NEVER save directly to removable storage: it is now the number 1 way that
files are destroyed. It has to do with the way that Word uses temporary
files and the way it 'builds' a final saved file. It needs rapid read/write
access to the active folder and if this is on a removable media, it usually
doesn't work.

Always save to the local hard drive and then COPY to the removable media.

 

[Asad Abidi]

Terry,

Thanks for the reply. The odd thing is that I have created Word files on
removable media for at least ten years: sciteq drives, zip drives, usb
drives, ... However, I have seen this problem only in the past few months. Is
this an outcome of the latest "improvements" to Word?

The first time this happened was when a proposal was due the next day. I
lost everything, and had to reconstruct the document in skeleton form from my
memory.

I'll stop doing this, but it's an easy enough mistake for others to
make---as your post implies. I think it is important to bring up this problem
with the Word development team. Word should know when it is writing to
removable media. BTW, the failure is repeatable, and Word aborts due to File
Permission error on the file.

Mission critical programs (ones on which funding depends!) should never
crash irrecoverably.

--
Asad Abidi
UCLA EE Department

NEVER save directly to removable storage: it is now the number 1 way that
files are destroyed. It has to do with the way that Word uses temporary
files and the way it 'builds' a final saved file. It needs rapid read/write
access to the active folder and if this is on a removable media, it usually
doesn't work.

Always save to the local hard drive and then COPY to the removable media.

 

[TF]

Asad

I'll agree strongly with your last statement!

I think that you have been very lucky not to have corrupted documents
previously: it is far from uncommon. Without a major change tot he way Word
creates its files, I don't believe that there is much that can be done
except perhaps detect and warn against working directly with removable
media.

Terry

Terry,

Thanks for the reply. The odd thing is that I have created Word files on
removable media for at least ten years: sciteq drives, zip drives, usb
drives, ... However, I have seen this problem only in the past few months.
Is
this an outcome of the latest "improvements" to Word?

The first time this happened was when a proposal was due the next day. I
lost everything, and had to reconstruct the document in skeleton form from
my
memory.

I'll stop doing this, but it's an easy enough mistake for others to
make---as your post implies. I think it is important to bring up this
problem
with the Word development team. Word should know when it is writing to
removable media. BTW, the failure is repeatable, and Word aborts due to
File
Permission error on the file.

Mission critical programs (ones on which funding depends!) should never
crash irrecoverably.

 

[Al M]

I too have been using flash drives for years with no problems until I lost a
vital script the other day.

I'll start following the HDD copy advice, and I'm sure it's very sound... So
thank you.

But isn't it strange that we're all experiencing these problems in the last
couple of months?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Nope. It has been going on for years, first with floppy drives, then with
CDRs and now with Flash drives. It is to do with the way Word works with
temp files and how it builds the final 'saved' version from all the temp
files it creates whilst editing. And to do this, it creates another temp
file in the 'active' folder - in this case the flash drive. Stick to copying
and you won't have any further problems. It also means that you should have
a 'backup copy' just in case you lose your flash drive when transporting the
document elsewhere!

Terry

 

[schnitz76]

Sorry to bring this topic back from the dead, but I have seen this several
times due to working with student use computer labs. My question is this:
Is there any official Microsoft document stating that people should not work
on files directly off a usb flash device? This problem is showing up a lot
more often here recently and people way over me are saying they want
something official to send out to users about this or I need to keep working
on it until I get the problem to go away if I cannot find anything official.

Thanks!

 

[Robert]

Hi,
Here is a topical answer from
http://news.office-watch.com/t/default.aspx?a=661&template=print-article.htm:

"Opening Office documents from removable storage
31 July 2008 - Office Watch
Since we wrote about removable drives and drive letters we've had long time
Office users asking about opening documents directly - should it be done at
all.
Many years ago, it wasn't a good idea to open a document directly from a
non local hard drive - meaning a floppy disk or network share.
Office users got into the habit of copying the document to a local drive,
working on it in Word / Excel / Powerpoint, closing the document then
copying it back to the floppy disk or network share.
In those days floppy disks were very slow and the few computers on networks
were also quite inefficient - plug-in USB hard drives were years in the
future. But the main problem was Office and especially Word - not only
would it open the document directly but all temporary or working files were
saved to the same location. With a floppy disk it was easy to run out of
disk space and even when you didn't get an error, Word ran very slowly.
These days things are quite different. Floppy disks are all but dead and
their replacement, USB 'sticks' are much more reliable and considerable
faster. Network performance and reliability has improved beyond belief.
Microsoft Office has long since fixed the problems of accessing non-local
drives. These days temporary files are saved to the local hard drive not
the same path as the document. Office 2007 / OOXML documents are much
smaller than their 'doc/xls/ppt' predecessors which reduces the disk
read/write requirements even more.
With all those changes over time, Office users are in a good position to
directly open documents from removable storage and work on them without a
pre/post copying ritual.
It may be faster and more reliable to temporarily copy a document to a
local drive while you work on it but usually that's not necessary."

So in many ways the answer is still better be safe than sorry...

Cheers,
Robert

-------------------------------------------------------

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm not sure where the writer gets the idea that "These days temporary files
are saved to the local hard drive not the same path as the document." They
certainly can be, but you have to enable the Tools | Options | Save option
to "Make local copy of files stored on network or removable drives." I
believe this option is *not* enabled by default. We see enough posts from
folks who have saved to USB drives and ended up with garbage that I would
still be chary of saving *anywhere* other than the HD.

 

[Terry Farrell]

I have never seen anything 'official' but the proof is the number of users
(especially students writing large theses, unfortunately) who post here
asking for help opening 'an important document. It is nearly always that
they have saved to removable media (mostly USB flash drives) and the
document is totally bombed.

I can only repeat that the best advice is to always save to the local (or
networked) HDD and COPY to and from removable media.

Terry Farrell

 

[sherrouse]

This has happened with me twice, once in a critical application. Once it
happened with a USB hard drive, the other time on a flash drive.

I open a document in Word, make changes, and save it. Word crashes on the
save, giving an error message like "Drive cannot be accessed", then offering
to save it elsewhere. When I select that option, Word crashes and shuts down.
It leaves behind 0 byte ~*.doc temporary files.

Has anyone else seen this?

To those that have lost a Word file in this way. I had success recovering a lost file by opening the hidden temp file ( With a file name like WRL0342..tmp) on Linux via Liber Office Writer (Open Office will probably work also).

I add to the voice that this is a sudden change in system behavior. I havebeen working for years off a 2GB USB drive using Word 03 under XP. I got the no permission messages and a crash and the whole file was erased exceptfor the hidden temp file. I had 1G of space still available on the USB. I ran a test on the USB and defraged it and within a day had another similar crash with a new file. THEN, with in 24hrs, I was working on another XP machine with a different USB, with a newly created Word file and had it crash! SOMETHING HAS CHANGED! I've run virus scans with no detects.

My suspicions are, a virus, some update of MS office or XP, possibly an updated greenshot, a screen capture tool ( as I used it to insert PNG images in most/all(?) of these ). One additional comment. While a Gig of space should be PLENTY, both of the USP drives had around 1G of space left. I wonder if running off a bigger USB drive would avoid this.