Word failed reading from this file...

[pearce]

On two occasions now, whilst using Word 2003, saving to USB I have
encountered this error message:

word failed reading from this file <...> please restore the network
connection or replace the floppy disk and retry.

I don't even have a floppy drive! Thankfully I spotted that my file had been
given another ~.tmp file name as the original file then disappears entirely!
Typically on both occasions they were important documents that I'd been
working on for a few hours (and saving as I went), I'm just grateful that I
managed to file the hidden file it had created.

Whether you click cancel or retry after the first error, I then got:

Word cannot complete the save due to a file permission error.

Has anyone come across this error? I save work regularly but have never had
a situation when it deletes the original file for you! I have up to date anti
virus so I don't think there's any problem there. Can anyone help?

 

[Tom Ferguson]

The best advice I can give is to never work on a file that has been opened
from any removable medium (including USB stick). Also, never save a file
from Word to a removable media. Chances are very good that the operation
will fail or the file will be corrupted. Instead, copy the file from the
removable medium to the computer's hard drive, work on the file, re-save it
to the hard drive. Then, copy it back to the removable medium, if desired,
using Windows Explorer or the like.

 

[pearce]

Good advice, thank you for that, will definitely follow it next time I'm
doing something important.

Would still be interested to know if anyone else has had this problem and
solved it?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Yes.

Using Word directly with any removable media is a recipe for disaster: it is
the number one destroyer of documents. Searching through these newsgroups
will find regular posts of unfortunate users who have learnt the hard way.