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I lost my 60 GB USB drive quite recently back in my school's computer lab.

Unfortunately, by the time I got there when I realized my USB was missing, it was already gone. So, its currently missing.

I have a few important Word documents in there, that were only saved in the USB. There is no auto-recovery or backup, unfortunately.

What I'd like to know is if it is possible if I could recover any of them.

Although, they are listed in the "Recent Documents" of word. I'd just like to know if there is ANY way I could recover them. Like, using a program to recover them.

I am using Microsoft Word 2010.

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    For school documents, I usually used Dropbox. At least that way they could follow me around any place that had an internet connection. Maybe consider that as a plan B in addition to keep them on a thumb drive. Nov 18, 2015 at 15:58
  • @Lorrii - Depending on how critical those files were to you try to reach out on campus / lab for someone to anonymously email those docs to you if they have/ found the USB. Maybe offer small paypal or cash reward.
    – Alex S
    Nov 18, 2015 at 17:28
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    When I used a USB stick for an isolated lab at work, it was plugged in behind the equipment and easy to forget. I used the lanyard that came on an older one as a long conspicuous ribbon so I would see it and remember to take it. You can also try a retractable keychain that stays clipped to you!
    – JDługosz
    Nov 18, 2015 at 17:28
  • Depending on how important the documents are, there are various forensics-style approaches for recovering parts of them from the hard drive. Unless there's a lot of money involved, it's almost certainly not worth it. School papers you wrote yourself probably are not, even if they represent days of work. I'd think about who you may have mailed some of the files to, etc.
    – alexis
    Nov 19, 2015 at 13:32
  • In the future, I recommend Google docs, then you can format later before handing it in. It's always available, always backed up, and easily downloaded.
    – user287352
    Nov 19, 2015 at 18:06

4 Answers 4

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No. The Recent Documents icon is just a link. To recover the documents you really do need to have the USB drive.

Note that it's likely a teacher found the USB drive and is keeping it safe until someone reports they lost it. I'd ask around with teachers if they found your USB drive.

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  • My experience both as a University Computer Room Tech and as a student is that it's most likely that the drive is gone to never be seen again. The number of lost drives we found and returned to owners was a very slim percentage of people coming in asking about lost drives. Oh, and I had one stolen myself just after forgetting it at a computer for a few minutes (right at term paper due time too, had not yet had a chance to back it up after many hours of work that day). Nov 19, 2015 at 15:21
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    @Mast He gave a factual answer with a suggestion from his own experiences. Why's it matter?
    – Insane
    Nov 20, 2015 at 5:49
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Is it possible if I could recover any of them?

The Word "Recent Documents" is just a list of filenames (and their locations) of documents you have recently edited. It does not contain any of the documents' data.

If you still have access to the machine where you last edited the documents, then it may be possible to recover them.

However, it is very unlikely you will succeed, as every write access to that disk will potentially overwrite data needed for successful recovery.

  • Word keeps AutoRecover files and backup files under some circumstances.

  • See How to recover a lost Word document for the locations of these files.

  • These files are normally deleted when a document is saved and Word exits normally (may be left around if Word crashes or is killed with a document open).

  • You may be able to find these deleted files on PCs where you last edited the documents using recovery software such as Recuva.

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It doesn't work all the time but it worked out for me a couple of times.

Go and search for your files in C:\Users\"Your User"\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office\"Word, Excel, etc."\

Here you can find some of your files autosaved by Office.

Look there, it is worth a shot.

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  • I have used this myself before too. My suggestion is that if you do find something, proof it carefully, because it will likely not be the exact completed version you last saw before the crash or your last save. Once in a word doc, it was only missing a few sentences. Another time in an excel doc, it was almost completely empty.
    – user287352
    Nov 19, 2015 at 18:09
  • @fredsbend You're right but to use autorecover better you can go to settings and change the value of "Save autorecover information every ..... minutes" to 1 minutes. By default it's 10 minutes.
    – Amin Vakil
    Nov 19, 2015 at 20:39
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I've once used Photorec to recover documents on a formatted harddisk. This was a quick format, that didn't overwrite all data, but it did overwrite the partition table and all file info. Partitions were deleted and recreated with different sizes and different file systems. I could recover most or all files, without filenames and creation date etc.

If there is a chance that autorecovery files are still available on the disk, this is a good and free method. The important thing is to stop using the harddisk in your laptop. Take it out, put it in an external case. If you have a Linux computer available, use that. Otherwise you can use another disk to put in your laptop, install Ubuntu, then Photorec. You will need enough space on the disk for the recovered files. It should be bigger than the original harddisk.

No guarantees as we don't know if that recovery file (still) exists. If it's overwritten, it's gone. If the content is still there, it can be recovered.

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    Please reread the question. He lost the USB Device. If you are not referring to do this on the USB device, then please add to which devices this should be done. As its written now, it appears you refer to the USB device which OP does not have.
    – LPChip
    Nov 18, 2015 at 13:21
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    @LPChip: "If there is a chance that autorecovery files are still available on the disk, this is a good and free method."
    – Lou
    Nov 18, 2015 at 16:11
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    @LPChip I was with you 100%, then I started to realize that he may have been referencing the auto recover files on the machine he last edited them on. Since OP mentioned losing it in a school lab, he was likely editing there, and any chance at getting back to the recovery files is likely gone since the machine has probably been used by other students already, and some public computer setups wipe all user writable areas each time someone logs off.
    – FreeMan
    Nov 18, 2015 at 16:45
  • I was referring to deleted autorecovery files on the harddisk, not the usb stick. But yes, you're probably right. When the document was edited on a school computer, then it's probably lost, as they won't allow you to take that thing apart and run a recovery tool on it. That would recover many other files as well, and that would cause privacy issues.
    – SPRBRN
    Nov 18, 2015 at 16:55

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