Word document is "gone" and conversion window appears

[Dr. Rick]

I saw on search something akin to this problem, but no answers that worked.




My journal, which I keep daily and which I saved yesterday with no known problem, produced, when I tried to open and work on it, a small window headed "File Conversion" which asks me to choose the encoding which makes my document readable and give choices "MS-DOS," "Windows" "other" and a list of some 20-30 choices, NONE of which gives me anything readable in the preview window.


I did manage to get a full screen shot which I pasted below, but on "preview" it's not there. Is there something special to do to include a screen shot in a post?


I've lost quite a few days of journal, and would love to get them back, but moreso, I'd like to know how to prevent it from happening in the future. This is not an emergency by a long shot, but any help would be greatly appreciated.
Word 2010 and Win10.
Thanks.

[macropod]

What file format (.doc, docx) and was it on a hard drive or USB?

Screenshots can be added as attachments via the paperclip symbol on the 'Advanced' screen.

[Charles Kenyon]

See How to attach a screenshot in this forum.

[Dr. Rick]

Screenshot/snip/jpg of the window I'm talking i about in my post above is below. It appears immediately after I try to load the file.


NONE of the choices in the window on the right make anything readable appear in the window below.


Do I need to try attaching the entire file? (several megabytes in length)

[Dr. Rick]

To Macropod:


It is a .doc file on a flash drive; it's been saved and re-loaded countless times on the same flash drive for many months without any problems like this occurring.

[Charles Kenyon]

Doing anything within Word with a document on flash drive is the most frequently reported cause of document corruption (loss).


I hope you have a backup on your hard drive.


Word does not work with flash drives. Using Word with documents on flash drives is the #1 cause of document corruption. You need to act as if you do not have any flash drives while you are using Word. You can use Windows to copy any document on a flash drive to your hard drive, use Word with it, and when Word is closed, copy it back if you wish.

This means:

• Do not open a document on a flash drive from Word or with Word.
• Do not save a document to a flash drive from within Word.
• Do not print a Word document while it is on a flash drive.

[macropod]

Originally Posted by Dr. Rick

It is a .doc file on a flash drive; it's been saved and re-loaded countless times on the same flash drive for many months without any problems like this occurring.

In all likelihood, then, the corruption was caused by the drive being removed without going through the safe removal process. Word typically won't release such a drive - you have to actually close Word. That said, even a faulty USB electrical connector can cause this.

Word files corrupted this way often cannot be recovered by any means. You will need to restore the file from your most recent backup and start over from there.

[macropod]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

Word does not work with flash drives.

It does, but doing so is risky for the reasons you outlined.

[Charles Kenyon]

Originally Posted by macropod

It does, but doing so is risky for the reasons you outlined.

So, would you ever recommend that someone else routinely use a flash drive to hold Word documents and use them directly?

[macropod]

I've never had a problem with them provided the safe removal process is adhered to. That's the only caveat. The issue is the same whether you're using a flash drive or a 2TB external USB drive.

[Dr. Rick]

To Charles Kenyon and Paul (Macropod) Edstein:

This may need to be moved to the “Rant” section if there is one. Your call.

First, thank you both for your rapid responses. I’ve never known anything said by either of you on this forum to be wrong, so I’ll take what you say as gospel.

That said, I am both stunned and mystified that this Word “problem with jump drives” isn’t major news. (Okay, maybe is WAS and I missed it. A quick and dirty Google search showed it was extant at least 3 years ago). As a Word user for at least 20 years, I’m stunned that I’ve never heard of this until now. I’ve routinely kept my daily journal file on an SD card that was almost never removed from the slot on my Dell laptop, and never had any problems until now. The part which mystifies me is why a major bug in a major program like MS Word wouldn’t have prompted Microsoft to have Word warn users when saving to an “alternate” drive with something in flashing red text reading: “WARNING: Word doesn’t do well with saving files to jump drives. Do you still want to proceed?” It could be a feature that one could turn off if the warning was not wanted. I know no one on these forums officially represents Microsoft, but I hope someone will suggest a fix.

I will obviously amend my storage locations and backup practices to take this issue into account, and I only have you folks to thank for letting me know about this issue. I started keeping my journal file on an SD card a long time ago, at first due to an older HD that I was afraid was approaching failure and on my current laptop because of an SSD, which (to me) is just a big flash drive inside my laptop housing.

Rick Joslin

[Charles Kenyon]

Hi Rick,

The HD card that was never removed was the equivalent of an SSD drive, until you removed it. The key, as pointed out by Paul, is to properly remove it.

For flash drives, one of the choices on a right-click is to Eject. I suspect this is also true for HD cards. Windows will warn if there is unfinished business.
You can also do a regular shut down of the computer, after which these can be removed. Regular shut down means using the command, not the power key.


I have not seen anything similar to Eject for portable hard drives (HDD or SSD). Shutting down before disconnecting works for those as well.
Closing Word, itself (all instances) should do the same thing but I have seen warnings when using Eject after closing Word.





Word ran into similar problems with floppy drives with the added problem of insufficient disk space.

[Dr. Rick]

To C. Kenyon
Thanks again. I'm at least 90% sure that I've never removed the SD card at all, but it really doesn't matter at this point. I've spoken to several friends in the last few days who are what I'd call "casual users" of Word, and NONE of them had heard of a problem with saving Word files to jump drives. Are you saying there is a basic difference between SD cards and USB drives? I've always felt that SD cards seemed a little more "stable" than USB drives, but this was always nebulous.

I've certainly had Windows (rather than Word) complain if one tries to eject any removable media that is "in use" (this phrase has a very specific meaning to Windows, apparently), but this is a separate issue. I still think it would be a great idea if WORD warned and prompted a user to proceed at their own risk until or unless they can figure out what I would call a major bug in their software.

Do you know offhand if other word processors, e.g., WordPerfect, WPS, Open Office, etc. have this same problem with jump drives? I was a happy user of WP before feeling pressured to change to MSW years ago.

Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns. You are a very generous contributor to these forums. In summary, I assume that your advice vis-a-vis Word and removable media is to feel free use USB/SD media for storage outside of Word, but not to save or load files on such drives to or from Word.


RJ

[Charles Kenyon]

Originally Posted by Dr. Rick

To C. Kenyon
Thanks again. I'm at least 90% sure that I've never removed the SD card at all, but it really doesn't matter at this point. I've spoken to several friends in the last few days who are what I'd call "casual users" of Word, and NONE of them had heard of a problem with saving Word files to jump drives. Are you saying there is a basic difference between SD cards and USB drives? I've always felt that SD cards seemed a little more "stable" than USB drives, but this was always nebulous.

I've certainly had Windows (rather than Word) complain if one tries to eject any removable media that is "in use" (this phrase has a very specific meaning to Windows, apparently), but this is a separate issue. I still think it would be a great idea if WORD warned and prompted a user to proceed at their own risk until or unless they can figure out what I would call a major bug in their software.

Do you know offhand if other word processors, e.g., WordPerfect, WPS, Open Office, etc. have this same problem with jump drives? I was a happy user of WP before feeling pressured to change to MSW years ago.

Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns. You are a very generous contributor to these forums. In summary, I assume that your advice vis-a-vis Word and removable media is to feel free use USB/SD media for storage outside of Word, but not to save or load files on such drives to or from Word.
RJ

My general process is that while in Word I act as if external media does not exist. This has been a problem with Word (and likely other Office programs) since Word 95 as far as I know. Flash drives were not around then, but floppy drives were.
I treat SD cards as if they are flash drives because I can't think of a reason that Word would act differently.
While within Word, I do insert pictures or files from flash drives, although not as links.
If there is ever a perceived difference between advice from me and that from Paul, rely on his advice. We are both experienced users but he has a stronger technical background and a deeper understanding of Word's object model.