Help, corrupted file after computer crash

users
#1

I am using LibreOffice Writer and my computer crash and restart.
After rebooting, LibreOffice failed to reconstruct the file.
This file itself is still exist and from the file size, I suspect the data
is still there (only 4k). The file itself contains mostly table with
special characters (greek and mathematical notations).

Is there anyway to reconstruct this file, even partial result.

Help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Kong Susanto

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
2 ways i know of

1st is to open LibreOffice and find where your backups are stored by clicking on
Tools - Options - LibreOffice - Path
Then just open a file-browser so that you can navigate to the right folder.
Hopefully a fairly recent back-up is in there.

2nd way is to open the corrupted file with an Archive Manager such as WinRar,
WinZip or something like that. Hopefully you see different parts of the file
inside there.

Err, the 1st thing to do is make a copy of the corrupted file in case some
accident happens while trying to recover it.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

I am using LibreOffice Writer and my computer crash and restart.
After rebooting, LibreOffice failed to reconstruct the file.
This file itself is still exist and from the file size, I suspect the data
is still there (only 4k). The file itself contains mostly table with
special characters (greek and mathematical notations).

Is there anyway to reconstruct this file, even partial result.

The easiest thing to do is probably to load it back from your latest
daily backup (of whatever kind that is, everything from external USB
drives of any kind and memory cards via CD/DVD to web based backups
will do).
If that, for some incredibly strange reason is not possible, you can
try to open it with a archiver of some kind, like Fileroller or what
ever. With some operating systems you may need to rename the file
first to Something.zip. If you are lucky you will then find a few
folders and some XML files. These can be opened with a regular text
editor, such as gEdit, Emacs or whatever you use, even a web browser
will do. One of those XML files will contain the text of the document,
so at least you can save that if you are a bit lucky.

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#4

Thanks,
1. I can not find any file in the backup directory. Just realised that
the backup option is off.
2. I am using file-roller, it failed to open the file. I have tested
on my other files, file-roller can read the content of uncorrupted
file.
Any other suggestions?
Kong Susanto

#5

Da: Susanto Kong <kongwoei@gmail.com>

A: users@global.libreoffice.org
Inviato: Gio 25 agosto 2011, 14:14:54
Oggetto: Re: [libreoffice-users] Help, corrupted file after computer crash

Thanks,
---cut---
Any other suggestions?
Kong Susanto

Hello,
If you use winrar under windows, it has an option that gives the possibility to
repair the archive; so you should rename the file extension to make it become a
zip file, then open with winrar, then repair it.
Maybe other archive managers have this option, but I'm not sure.
Namastè! cico :slight_smile:

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
I think File Roller indicates that the person is using a Gnu&Linux rather than
Windows? Possibly one with using a Gnome DE?
http://fileroller.sourceforge.net/

Is it possible to try another archive manager to see if something else can open
it?

Another idea is to hunt around and see if you saved an earlier copy to another
partition, drive, usb-stick, memory card or if you emailed it to yourself or
someone? Sorry i am not being very helpful here! I was hoping to find
something in documentation

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation
but couldn't find anything. We did have a huge long thread about recovering a
file a couple of weeks ago so it might be worth hunting through Nabble to try to
find some better ideas
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/nabble-mailing-list-interface/
Ahah, i found the thread, i think
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/help-recovering-td3191906.html

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#7

Hi,

I am using LibreOffice Writer and my computer crash and restart.
After rebooting, LibreOffice failed to reconstruct the file.
This file itself is still exist and from the file size, I suspect the data
is still there (only 4k). The file itself contains mostly table with
special characters (greek and mathematical notations).

Is there anyway to reconstruct this file, even partial result.

Help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

What is the used file format? Did you save it in the ODF format
(like .odt, .ods, .odp...) or is it in one of the Microsoft formats?

If it is in the ODF format, you should make a copy of the file,
rename it to .zip and then try to open it with any archive manager
you like. Your text will be in the file called "content.xml". You can
open this file and copy everything into a new document.

If it is in the Microsoft formats, than I'm afraid, but you've lost
the work and have to recreate it from scratch. (At least, I don't
know of a way to recover some information from those files).

Good luck.

Sigrid

#8

Thanks,

I am using Ubuntu 10.10.
I have tried changing to zip, but still can not open.
I have borrowed my college machine (mine only single boot).
I open with winrar with error warning, I can see the directory,
but the content.xml size is 0.
It seems, I may have lost it.

Kong

#9

Hi :slight_smile:
I think the docX type formats can also be recovered by renaming to ??.zip rather
than ??.docx
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#10

Hi :slight_smile:
Have you tried using the LibreOffice "Math" package? It's likely to have a lot
of mathematical symbols and stuff. You might also find that you can install a
Greek font for using in Writer?
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation#LibreOffice_Math_Guide

The other components inside the .zip might be worth looking at if they open
easily.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#11

Hi :slight_smile:
Have you tried using the LibreOffice "Math" package?  It's likely to have a lot
of mathematical symbols and stuff.  You might also find that you can install a
Greek font for using in Writer?

I think that Greek characters are there by default in Ubuntu, at least
I don't remember that I installed mine separately.

Anyway, it seems like Susanto lost the file permanently. Hopefully
someone learned to always take backups of everything.
Since using Ubuntu, why not try Ubuntu One for syncing files?

Kind regards

Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ

#12

...
If file-roller can't open the file then the archive structure may be
corrupted beyond repair.

A few things to try (make a backup of the file and try on the backup):

- Try opening with Gvim to see the archive headers, compare with a valid
.odt and see if perhaps you can repair manually.

- Try repairing with 'zip'
$ zip -F foo --out foofix
or
$ zip -FF --foo --out foofixfix

See 'man zip' for more info. Note: you may have to install zip if not
installed already. Given that you are using file-roller (Archive
Manager) I'm guessing that you may have a Debian based system? If so
here is some added information:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/en/man1/zip.1.html
<http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/en/man1/zip.1.html#contenttoc4>
Currently the fix options can't recover entries that have a bad
checksum or are otherwise damaged.

#13

Correction:
$ zip -FF foo --out foofixfix

#14

Da: Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk>

A: users@global.libreoffice.org
Inviato: Gio 25 agosto 2011, 16:24:30
Oggetto: Re: [libreoffice-users] Help, corrupted file after computer crash

Hi :slight_smile:
I think File Roller indicates that the person is using a Gnu&Linux rather than
Windows? Possibly one with using a Gnome DE?

- - -

True!
I should have written... if you have the possibility to use... :slight_smile:
Namastè! cico :slight_smile: