I've lost my document! What can I do?

We had a power cut and something has happened to my PC. I've lost all my morning's work which was a report I was editing in Word. I work from home and don't use a server, what can I do?

Ouch! We've heard this sooo many times before! You mention that you don't have a back-up system, so in this case, it depends on how badly the PC was affected. Most programmes, like Microsoft Word do save as you are going along. What you can do is reboot and go back into Word and see if the files are there.

Some tips for the future:

When you go back into Word look at how long between saves and shorten the time.

For example in the latest version of Word go to

• Office button
• Word options [small box on right hand side at bottom of dialogue box]
• Save
• Save autorecover information - save every X minutes

In Word 2003

• Options
• Save
• Save AutoRecover information

In some cases all may have been lost and there isn't a solution other than re-doing your work which I know is painful.

Another idea is to create a back-up system. To do this some external storage is needed. This could be saving onto a memory stick, or CD or online.