How to restore a file that has been corrupted in a computer crash

Copper Contributor

HI, I hope you can help. Today I was working on a document on OneDrive which was auto-saving. My computer froze (MS Surface Pro).  I forced a shutdown and when I restarted and reopened the file, I got an error message that it was unreadable, it auto-saved and it is now empty. I have tried open and repair, I have tried to restore, but it says there are no version histories. I don't understand how the old version can be completely gone. Has anyone any ideas? Thank you

3 Replies

@HelenKelly 

 

Hi, I was going to suggest version history as your best option, but it looks like that's a problem for you for some reason. Odd.

 

Failing that, maybe try some of the techniques in this doc - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/word/recover-lost-document

 

Good luck.  :smile:

I just solved this, thank you @PeterRising Although there is no version history on the local one drive, I tried the OneDrive for Business and even though it told me the file was not readable/accessible, there was a full version history there in the online site and I got my file. Really strange, it lost over 100 kb in the MS Pro crash, but I have it back now. Thank you for replying anyway. This might help someone else in future - check the online OneDrive rather than just your local one. 

@HelenKelly 

 

Happy to hear that you got it back. :smile: