word is deleting my files

[Ryan Mitchell]

Two times in the past month word has told me that it cannot save the file to
my flash disk as there is something wrong with the temp file and there is
insufficient space which is untrue.

Now that is fine but it then says to re-insert the disk and click retry but
when I click retry it does nothing. Then when I click on cancel it says
something about saving and then deleting the file and Microsoft word closes.
The file I was then working is for some reason deleted.

I have never had a problem like this before and it was bad enough the first
time but twice, what is going on and why does it have to delete the file???

I have never had this problem when saving to my PCs hard drive it has just
happened on my flash disk. Also before this error I was able to save several
times without problems. I don't think there is anything wrong with the flash
disk as I regularly load and use an access file from it which has never had
any errors like this.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Save the file to your HD and then copy to the USB disk.

 

[Ryan Mitchell]

Yes but I use the file in two differant places so I prefer to save it on the
flashdisk in case i forget to copy from my hardrive. Why an existing file is
deleted by word for no apparent reason is what needs to be fixed.

Also if microsoft word cannot suddenly detect the flashdisk when saving but
it can delete the file from the location it is trying to save to how does
that make sense at all?!?!?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Word documents should never be saved directly to any form of removable
media.

 

[Ryan Mitchell]

Ok fair enough.

Word documents should never be saved directly to any form of removable
media.

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Ryan,

If you are interesting in *why* removable media shouldn't be used for
working directly with a Word document is because Word creates some
temp files in the same location as the and they could be larger than
the available disk space. The size of the temp files depend on the
document contents. Plus some of the temp files do not get deleted and
the file doesn't completely update until the file is closed. I've
found some temp files aren't deleted until you actually exit Word. If
the files are saved on a local or network drive then Word can find the
necessary files and make the updates. So if you are saving the
document to both your local disk and your flash drive then the
documents saved on your drive may not be updated correctly if you
remove the media too soon which can result in corrupt files.

Since you are encountering errors on save then you are encountering
another issue in working directly off removable media. Here is some
background on what happens when Word performs a save:

Word creates a temp file in the same location as the document.
(basically two versions of the file on the removable media during this
step) Then it deletes original file and renames temp to take the place
of the original file.

I'd say during the Save the temp file was created, the original
document was deleted, but Word couldn't move the temp file back to
take the place of the original. You may want to take a look at temp
files on your flash drive, same folder as the document, to see if you
could recover your file(s).

In light of this in Word 2002 they changed the way Word handles files
on removable media. This option is found under Tools/Options/Save and
"Make local copy of files..." If there isn't 3MG of available disk
space then it copies the file to the local drive for you and then
replaces it once it is saved. (Of course this all happens without user
interaction)

BUT, I experimented with this option using a flash drive and have
encountered corrupt files as a result - even though I know to not
remove the media too soon. I never encountered problems with files
that didn't matter - once I *thought* all was 'safe' I started using
it regularly so of course I ended up losing an important document.
Lesson learned and now I'll only work off the local drive.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Ryan Mitchell]

That explains it thanks but could I also ask is it safe to delete the temp
files?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

They should be deleted automatically when you close the document. Allow Word
time to do this. If they remain when the document is closed, then, yes, it's
okay to delete them.

 

[Ryan Mitchell]

They aren't automatically being deleted but I done it manually. Thanks for
all the help.

 

[Beth Melton]

If the temp file is in the same location as the original document and
is named along the lines of ~wrdxxxx.tmp then it's likely the temp
file is a copy of the document you lost. That being the case you
wouldn't want to delete the file until you've opened it in Word and
recovered your document.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/