Missing Word Document

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Sigma - 09 Oct 2005 17:29 GMT

I am not sure if this is a peculiar problem, but it is really bugging
me.

Everytime I work on a document in my FAT flash drive, save it and close
it, i will find that the document is missing. I do not know how to
refresh the folder, but even if i switch between folders and I still
cannot find the document.

There will be this strange document with an invisible icon name
Word_L..... a whole string of numbers. When I click on it, it
disappears. I think it is a temp file. But I can't find the original.

I can go to the recent file menus and open it and it is still there.
But i just can't see it. After that, I can see the file again.

Strange behaviour. Any idea what is wrong?

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Daiya Mitchell - 10 Oct 2005 05:54 GMT

A few points:

1. The OS X Finder is slow to update, even when it's not a flash drive--I
think I usually switch folders to refresh the view. I think this is the
Finder acting up rather than Word. What if you close the doc/quit Word,
eject the flash drive, then reconnect it? Can you see the doc then?

2. Those are temp files. You should be able to to ignore them completely.

3. It's really not a good idea to edit a Word document that is stored on
removable media, because Word will run into space difficulties with all
those temp files that it needs to make, and then you get corruption. Copy to
hard drive, edit, copy back to flash drive is the recommended process. Flash
drives have a lot more space than floppy disks, where following this advice
is *crucial*, but there are reported problems with flash drives as well,
though much less commonly. If you must edit directly on the flash drive
because of a locked-down hard drive, try closing the file every so often to
clear out the temp files and free up space.

PS. Is FAT some special type of flash drive that interacts differently with
the OS?

> I am not sure if this is a peculiar problem, but it is really bugging
> me.
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> Strange behaviour. Any idea what is wrong?

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Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: <http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/>
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

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Sigma - 10 Oct 2005 15:10 GMT

Thanks. I will take your advice to edit the file after copying to the
harddisk.
Yes, when I eject the flash drive and mount it again, the document
appears. But I was worried that it might not, so often hesitate to
eject it when i cannot see the file.

btw, i was referring to FAT16, the file format for Window. I use
Windows at work, but Mac at home.

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Mac Forum / Applications / Word / October 2005

Missing Word Document