Word: Accidentally overwrote newer files

[judgehopkins]

I copy all Word files from a folder on my hard drive and then paste them into a folder on my USB drive.

I accidentally did the reverse and, of course, wiped out the newer files with the older files.

Is there any way to retrieve the versions of the new files?

There are two guaranteed rules of success: First, never tell everything you know.

 

[fumei]

No.

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[judgehopkins]

Thanks, Gerry!

There are two guaranteed rules of success: First, never tell everything you know.

 

[Madawc]

When I back up to USB, I have a folder with a date, e.g. 20081117. If I happened to copy the wrong way, that would waste time but not overwrite.

Madawc Williams (East Anglia, UK). Using Windows XP & Crystal 10

 

[fumei]

Huh? If you copy 20081117 files back to ANY folder with files of the same names, then those files are overwritten. Why would they not overwrite? Mind you, there should be a warning message.

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[MakeItSo]

Just a shot in the blue:
What exactly happens, when you overwrite a file?
Is it deleted and the newer one copied over or is truly being replaced completely?
Would there be any chance to recover it with Drive Rescue?

http://www.magnesiummedia.com/pcutilities/details5988.html

[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

 

[strongm]

And if your OS is Vista then you'll have shadow copies of the file and should be able to "Restore previous versions" from the right-click menu ...

 

[fumei]

MakeItSo, Drive Rescue clearly states it only works with FAT, not NTFS. True, a lot of USB drives are FAT, so it may be an option.

Vista Shadow copies are only available on Business, Ultimate and Enterprise editions. It is NOT available on Home, or Home Premium versions.

Normally, when a file is written to disk its bytes are written to clusters which may, or may not be contiguous - thus the issue of fragmentation. The information about the file, that is, where the clusters are, are maintained by the file system. In a FAT (File Allocation Table) system, the table lists information about the clusters that contain the file. Think of it as header-like information. When a file is deleted or overwritten, what actually happens is that the FAT information is overwritten. The clusters used to store the actual 0's and 1's of the file may, or may not be the same clusters used by the original. More often than not, they will NOT be the same clusters. The clusters used for the original file have their starting bits deleted.


Deleting a file does this:

10001110001111100101

becomes

_0001110001111100101

You can think of the starting bit as being null, sort of. In any case, because the bits in the cluster no longer have a starting point, the remaining "0001110001111100101" no longer has any reference in the FAT. Thus, it is "deleted", as FAT can not find it. It no longer has information about it.

This is why good forensic geeks can (or could when systems were primarily FAT), squeak out those "0001110001111100101" bits, because often they were still there.

It is WAAAAAAY more complicated than the following, but basically in NTFS, information about files is stored as file attributes in a relational database, the MFT (Master File Table), which is itself also a file, and stored in the MFT. An Alice-in-Wonderland sort of thing, as the Master File Table includes the file that IS the Master File Table. Up to point. Once a file becomes a certain size, another file is created with the information about the file, and THAT file is included in the MFT.

NTFS, unlike FAT is a transactional based system. This allows for better possible recovery if something goes wrong during file operations. However, a file still has information about the file stored.

If you save a file with the same name, to the same folder, then the information is updated in the MFT. This means it is, for all intents and purposes, overwritten.

If I understand Vista Shadow correctly (and I VERY well may not!), it is not a true versioning file system. It is a snapshot system. The shadow copy (the snapshot) is not created every time a file is changed. It stores backup copies of files on local volumes using incremental snapshots and can restore them later. It uses Restore Points. If it has incremented those restore points, then previous restore points are not available...I think. I think it does store multiple restore points (thus you could restore various "versions"), but again, they are incremental, not continuous.

It also can not be used on FAT32 disks, nor on disk smaller than 1 Gb (not likely these days).

It also only monitors certain types of files. On Windows Vista, this set of files is defined by monitored extensions outside of the Windows folder, and everything under the Windows folder.

Actually this functionality was available with XP, by using vssadmin.exe, but it excluded a lot of file types. ALL user data files such as documents, digital images, email were excluded.

I found an interesting item that states that Vista excludes document file types. I have no idea if that is accurate.

faq219-2884

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[MakeItSo]

Fumei, what you describe is pretty much the same way I see this; including most USB drives being FAT. Hence my proposal with DriveRescue.
If that does not work I honestly see no way of restoring the "older" (newer) files either.

Thanks!
Andy

[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell

 

[strongm]

>It is NOT available on Home, or Home Premium versions

Au contraire. It's just the front end that is missing on Home and Home Premium. Vista shadow copying still occurs on them, you just can't (normally) get to them. But if you download a free tool such as ShadowExplorer you'll find that you have exactly the same ability to recover previous versions as on the Business, Ultimate and Enterprise versions (albeit not via a right-click)

 

[strongm]

Sorry - meant to include a link to ShadowExplorer:

http://www.shadowexplorer.com/downloads.html

 

[PeterMoran]

Hi,

I felt this discussion, while most interesting, may have lost its way a little with regards to helping the "judge" come up with a way of avoiding this problem in the future, given that there is little chance of recovering from his current problem.

I use a tool called Total Commander from

http://www.ghisler.com

for copying files. I think it is way ahead of Windows Explorer for this task for a number of reasons. Just one is that it will not overwrite newer files with older files without requesting confirmation. Using this tool, it would have been most difficult for the "judge" to overwrite his files.

Good luck!

Peter Moran

 

[MakeItSo]

As an encore to the TotalCommander:

I also use it on a daily basis, almost exclusively instead of the Windows Explorer.
The TC also has a very useful feature called "Synchronise Directories"; with it you can very easily and straightforward see which files on which side are the newer ones and thus decide which files to copy in which direction.

e.g.: USB stick has files a,b,c,d
Files b and d are newer on your harddisk, while files a and c are newer on your USB stick. You synchronise (compare) the directories, determine that files a and c shall be copied from the left (USB) to the right (HD) and files b and d the other way.

Click "Synchronise" and both the HD and the USB will contain the latest versions.

Quite a nice feat actually.

However - as always - the golden rule is: know what you are doing and do it with open eyes!
;-)


[navy]"We had to turn off that service to comply with the CDA Bill."[/navy]
- The Bastard Operator From Hell