Windows 10 Is there any way to recover my files?

[XynWill]

I have been working on 3 wordpad files and I just leave the files open and save whenever I add new data to them. This morning I got on my laptop and clicked wordpad and all 3 files are completely blank and they are now just titled "Document" instead of the save name they had. I went to find the files in my documents and it says I have not saved for 9 days so all the data I have recorded in the last 9 days is gone. I know for sure I have saved the files multiple times in the last 9 days. What is going on? Why were the files erased why are the save files gone and how can I recover them?

 

[kemical]

This link has some things to try:
How to Find Lost Documents in WordPad

 

[pnamajck]

along with kemical's informative reply:

did you go through file-explorer to exact location of each file and try opening, XynWill? if you remember the exact name of file … you may wish to search for it.

when's the last time you rebooted? i surmise the three text files automatically open on desktop (upon reboot)? or do you manually open each file upon boot-up? do you have alternate user-names … if so, log-off and then log-on again.

how old is your drive/ram? did windows perform any updates? if all else fails, have you tried windows system-restore back to previous point? keep in mind … any newly added text after that system-restore probably would have vanished.

there's also some free recover utilities* on the market which may assist you, XynWill.

in the future:

• it is possible to pin each document to task-bar or to start-menu
• having a closed document might be safer than retaining an open document (esp. while away from computer).
• good idea to (periodically) perform "save-as" rather than simple "save" … far as i understand, the "save-as" procedure rewrites the complete data … whereas "save" only saves revised data.
• and, as you have witnessed … probably beneficial for you to save a copy of each file (every 8, 12, 24 hours) as backup to your usb-drive or similar.​

*ref:

Spoiler: techradar.com

How to recover missing or deleted files | TechRadar

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

And if you don't want to lose what you are working on make a copy named Backup whatever, or just BU whatever.

When you save your file using Save As, just save the file as the backup file as well.

It's always better to have more then one copy of anything important.

If you do know what the name of the files are, you might want to install and use Agent Ransack to search for the files by name.
Even if you know part or the name you can try.

Agent Ransack is a stand alone search engine that I've used for years in many versions of Windows and it's far superior to the Windows search engine. There is a version for Windows 10.

If the files are anywhere on you computer it will find them.

Agent Ransack - Free File Searching Utility

You only need the free version.

Mike

 

[mackpono]

There is a free data recovery app called Recuva, you can give it a try