Umbuntu Open Office file problem - please help

Dustykitten

DS1 uses Open Office with Umbuntu on a notebook.

Last night the notebook froze whilst he was editing his final piece of
A Level English coursework.

When he turned it back on the document had zero bytes and the file name now has % in it :eek:

This is such a disaster and you know what is coming next, no paper copy, no copy in the cloud simply no copy.

Please can somebody tell me if there is any hope of getting it back, to say there is a meltdown in progress is an understatment.

Many thanks for reading and for any help.

fwor

I guess the first thing to say is that his chances of recovering the data will probably be improved if you avoid using the notebook for anything in its current state.

It's quite likely the filesystem is corrupted, but it's also quite possible that this can be recovered, because recent versions of Linux use journalling filesystems that are quite good at sorting themselves out.

The thing that you really need to do is to run a filesystem check on the hard disk (or SSD if it doesn't have a conventional hard disk). But you need to provide more info, such as what make and model the notebook is and which version of Ubuntu is installed on it.

It ~should~ be possible to start Ubuntu in recovery mode, in which case one of the options should be to run a filesystem check (possibly described as "fsck"), but again that will depend on the info on make/model.

Another approach would be to boot the notebook from a pendrive using SystemRescue and use that to recover the filesystem. And even if a filesystem recovery doesn't help, OpenOffice keeps a version of any document in progress in a temporary file, which may also be recoverable - so you do still have options.

Dustykitten

Thank you so much for giving me hope.

Notebook says Asus EeePC 1008HA

Nothing has been done on it since this incident. I have no experience of this operating system or software (I'm using my desktop/chrome to do this) so am going to need step by step help to get the information etc so if you have time I will follow instructions.

Thanks again.

fwor

Sorry, been out.

I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that notebook, so the following is based only on my understanding of Ubuntu & OO.

From what you say, the notebook has already been booted up after the crash, as you already know the file size is zero.

So I don't think you will risk causing much further harm if you boot it up again as normal.

Once you've done that, go to Applications, Accessories, Terminal. This will open a terminal prompt, where you type

sudo touch /forcefsck

You will need to enter your son's password.

Then reboot and watch the screen carefully - it should check and correct the filesystem.

OpenOffice is very good at recovering files itself - I get a lot of power cuts here and it has worked successfully many times for me.

So... if you then start OpenOffice as an application (i.e. not by opening a file to start it, but from the Applications menu) you should get the File Recovery dialogue. Does this happen?

Dustykitten

Thanks done all that. Everything happened as you said, it recovered the file but it is empty.

OneADay

Might want to check if there is a backup folder under the home directory and in folder

.openoffice/3/username

Also might help http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16040

Dustykitten

Can you tell me how to look in the home directory please?

OneADay

Dustykitten wrote: »

Can you tell me how to look in the home directory please?

Go to Places on the toolbar - and then choose Home and you should get the file manger up and running - your son ought to know how to use it.

Change preferences to view hidden folders http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/ubuntu-tips-and-tricks.htm#Set-default-view-File-Manager

Alternatively it can be done via the Terminal window (i.e. command prompt like Windows) but best to try above.

Dustykitten

No joy back up is empty. Loosing hope now. Any other advice - thanks

Realised that it is libreoffice (not open office) that is being used - sorry about that.

fwor

Dustykitten wrote: »

Realised that it is libreoffice

Sorry for him but it doesn't look hopeful. If it's LibreOffice then you need to look in

/home/.libreoffice/3/user/backup/

for the backup folder, but I suppose you've already guessed that for yourself?