Recovering an older version of a file

Dimitri

Member
An immensely important .txt file got overwritten for some incomprehensible reason by Notepad++ and overwritten in such a way that it is now completely blank.

Is there some way to recover an earlier version of the file?
 
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_Glitch

Active Member
Have you tried right clicking on it, chosen properties and checked the fan "Previous versions"?
 

Dimitri

Member
Yeah, I checked it, but unfortunately no previous versions available.

Is there ANYTHING I can do here. I'm friggin lost without this file. I tried Recouva and it turned up bubkus.
 

Dimitri

Member
I'm grasping at straws here, because I'm on the verge of suicide: Is there any way to try to recover it from RAM since I've not turned the computer off since this happened?
 

_Glitch

Active Member
if you open a word document, the file is loaded to the RAM. And ANY change to the file stored in the ram will be updated immediately. That's how RAM works. It's temporary storrage.
Even changing a sentence like "Backup is a good idea" to "Backup is important" will edit the file on the RAM.
When you hit "save" it basically writes the new data in the RAM to your storrage device.

And it will be hard to recover a previous version of a file on your storrage device (if not impossible) because they way editing files work, is rewriting the sectors on the haddrive that already have the file stored, to match the new info.
This is different from simply deleting a file. Deleted files aren't really deleted until the are overwritten. Deleting them simple marks the sectors as free spaces even though there are still data on them. Rewriting data erases the sectors and stores updated or new date.

I am sorry, but you are screwed. The reason i asked you to check previous versions, was in hopes you have activated windows File history feature. It saves older versions of a file separately.
I hope this have taught you that backup is important, and also maybe give the Windows file history feature a try.

How important was the file since to are considering suicide :/ (I know you don't mean it literrally, but i am just curious)
 
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Dimitri

Member
if you open a word document, the file is loaded to the RAM. And ANY change to the file stored in the ram will be updated immediately. That's how RAM works. It's temporary storrage.
Even changing a sentence like "Backup is a good idea" to "Backup is important" will edit the file on the RAM.
When you hit "save" it basically writes the new data in the RAM to your storrage device.

And it will be hard to recover a previous version of a file on your storrage device (if not impossible) because they way editing files work, is rewriting the sectors on the haddrive that already have the file stored, to match the new info.
This is different from simply deleting a file. Deleted files aren't really deleted until the are overwritten. Deleting them simple marks the sectors as free spaces even though there are still data on them. Rewriting data erases the sectors and stores updated or new date.

I am sorry, but you are screwed. The reason i asked you to check previous versions, was in hopes you have activated windows File history feature. It saves older versions of a file separately.
I hope this have taught you that backup is important, and also maybe give the Windows file history feature a try.

How important was the file since to are considering suicide :/ (I know you don't mean it literrally, but i am just curious)

Backing up doesn't enter into this story, because the file got overwritten while I was working on it.

The file was immensely important. Contained all sorts of things, notes for work, an extensive to do list and a lot of other important stuff that I don't even remember (which is the worst of it).
 

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
Backing up doesn't enter into this story, because the file got overwritten while I was working on it.

The file was immensely important. Contained all sorts of things, notes for work, an extensive to do list and a lot of other important stuff that I don't even remember (which is the worst of it).
And that's why you back stuff up.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Backing up doesn't enter into this story, because the file got overwritten while I was working on it.
What about the backup copy you made before you started working on it, eh?

You're pretty SOL man, sorry.
 
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