Question Word Document was lost when I transferred to HDD drive (I unplugged it during transfer). Need help using data recovery software! Final project lost!

[burdistheword]

I had saved my word document on a laptop with Windows 10. I went to transfer it to a separate HDD drive. When I went to plug in the drive on another computer to open it on the other computer (with Windows 11), when I opened it, it said that it cannot locate the file. I tried using Autorecover but the file doesn't exist, and it's not on my laptop anymore.

It's not that the document was unsaved, it was saved but was lost in transfer.

The file still shows up in recents, but when I try to open it, it says "could not find this item. This is no longer located in d:/misc. Verify the item's location and try again."

I was almost done with my final, which is due in a few hours and I'm freaking out. Please help!!

Device specifications for Windows 10 laptop--- Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz 2.42 GHz Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.71 GB usable) Device ID B12AA31F-FBF7-4C87-88E3-AF2D66E67392 Product ID 00325-82147-80680-AAOEM System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

Edition Windows 10 Home Version 22H2 OS build 19045.5737 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19061.1000.0

Device specifications for Windows 11 ROComputer--- Processor AMD Ryzen Z1 3.20 GHz Installed RAM 16.0 GB (11.7 GB usable) Device ID C9B0F41C-B6D1-475D-AFC0-BEF75BA0F3CF Product ID 00342-22100-41117-AAOEM System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Pen and touch Touch support with 10 touch points Windows specifications--- Edition Windows 11 Home Version 24H2 Installed on ‎09/‎04/‎2025 OS build 26100.3775 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.66.0

Manufacturer ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.

I am using DMDE currently, and already scanned through the drive, but I can't figure out what to do next. All the information I can find is about how to restore a deleted file.

 

[USAFRet]

I had saved my word document on a laptop with Windows 10. I went to transfer it to a separate HDD drive. When I went to plug in the drive on another computer to open it on the other computer (with Windows 11), when I opened it, it said that it cannot locate the file. I tried using Autorecover but the file doesn't exist, and it's not on my laptop anymore.

Why is it not still on the laptop?

 

[burdistheword]

I moved it from the laptop to the HDD, I wasn't thinking and cut and pasted instead of copied and pasted

 

[USAFRet]

I moved it from the laptop to the HDD, I wasn't thinking and cut and pasted instead of copied and pasted

Major mistake.

What make/model external HDD drive?

 

[American2021]

I would try file recovery software FIRST, something like this: https://dmde.com/
It has a free edition that allows you to run it on the directory your file was in on the laptop. The paid version is about $20.00 per year presently.

The free edition limitation is: "In the Free Edition, you can view the found directory tree and recover up to 4,000 files from a chosen directory per request, with no limit on the number of requests.

So, if you know the directory on the laptop you originally had the file in and there are less than 4,000 files in that directory then you should be able to use the free edition to recover it theoretically speaking.

That's what I would do. Hope this helps.

 

[Rokinamerica]

I don't have Win 11 so don't know if this could apply, but do you have file history turned on? I have used that a couple of times when I inadvertently deleted something I was working on.

 

[johnbl]

I would look in this hidden directory (appdata)

1. C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word
2. C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Word
3. C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp

just to see if there is a copy>
note you can start cmd.exe as an admin then type
cd c:\users\yourusername\appdata
then you can use normal directory commands or start explorer this way.
start cmd.exe
cd c:\users\yourusername\appdata
start explorer .
(the period tells explorer to list the current directory)
then you can use file explorer to look around the directory and its sub directories

windows is supposed to refuse a shutdown request if the file copy is not completed. It might be in the volume shadows service pending the copy completion.
the volume shadow copy service saves the files in a hidden directory. maybe see if you can recover from vss