how to recover damaged files?

Question

Level 1

10 points

how to recover damaged files?

Is there a way to recover damaged or corrupted files, such as ones that say "[document] could not be opened"? My hard drive is fine, but there is a particularly important file that was altered in such a way that it cannot be opened (read about it here). sometimes I come across other files or pictures that cannot be opened as well, and most of them are important. In hindsight I should be taking backups, but I don't. Since I saved the document on my computer, shouldn't there be a place where all the saved versions are, and is it possible to get to that place if it exists? Thanks!

Posted on May 7, 2014 9:10 PM

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Answer 1

arthur

Level 5

5,254 points

May 8, 2014 4:12 AM in response to Grouchyfluff

Sometimes it will work to duplicate the errant file and then open the duplicate.

You might try repairing your HD and permissions with Disk Utility and see if that will repair the file. OS X: About OS X Recovery

Occasionally Techtool Techtool Pro 7 will be able to repair something that Disk Utility can't.

The saved versions are in a hidden folder called .DocumentRevisions-V100. See Everything You Need to Know About Versions | Mac|Life

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Answer 2

Grouchyfluff Author

Level 1

10 points

May 8, 2014 4:46 PM in response to arthur

i tried going to the .documentrevisions-v100 folder, but once i got in the system changed the name to .documentrevisions-v100-bad-1, for what reason im not sure. i saw all the files but i could not open them because they all were "damaged or in a format unrecognizable by [program]". that prgram looks a little pricey, but i gues it does what they say it does. either way im not very interested. it looks like ill just have to make new documents from now on. just out of curiosity, why are the files in the revisions folder not able to be opened?

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Answer 3

Tony T1

Level 6

10,238 points

May 8, 2014 4:29 AM in response to Grouchyfluff

Grouchyfluff wrote:

Since I saved the document on my computer, shouldn't there be a place where all the saved versions are, and is it possible to get to that place if it exists? Thanks!

Try to open the file again, then try File->Revert To ->Previous Save or File->Revert To ->Browse Previous Versions:

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Answer 4

Grouchyfluff Author

Level 1

10 points

May 8, 2014 10:58 AM in response to Tony T1

i tried this, but when i open the documents it says there is no document. i tried doing this with another document that worked but

then i made a test file and the same thing happened. i dont know what to do now. ill look at the articles mentioned above.

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Answer 5

benwiggy

Level 4

1,485 points

May 8, 2014 4:13 AM in response to Grouchyfluff

File recovery is extremely difficult. It's likely that the area of the disk where an old version was has been overwritten, either by the newer file, or by some other data while you continue to use your data.

Pages files are packages, and it's possible that you can recover some data from inside the document using TextWrangler or something similar.

Grouchyfluff wrote:

I should be taking backups, but I don't.

You should expect to lose files in the future if you don't start.

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Answer 6

Grouchyfluff Author

Level 1

10 points

May 8, 2014 5:52 PM in response to Tony T1

i cant open it in preview, it says its empty. i dont know what constitutes being empty or full, but the file size is zero bytes. i can open it in quick view, but it doesnt give me the information i need. is it possible these were overwritten or deleted somehow?