what to do when AutoCAD can't recover a file

My hard disk recently crashed and I lost some files which weren't backed up . A data recovery service retrieved most fo the data, but my most important AutoCAD files do not open and cannot be resurrected by the ACAD recover feature. I also am unable to rename back up files and recover them. Is there a service who can help me recover my corrupt files? Does not need to be a free utility. I have about 15-20 files that I would really like to recover. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Katie

Are there any autosave files available you could revert to?

If you can't recover the corrupted AutoCAD files or the backup files then I'd say there is not much chance of recovering the CAD drawings.

the autosave files seem to have the same problem. But I think there are utilities out there that can do more than the recover command and possibly companies who recover files for a fee. Has anyone heard of any?

If you'd like to email me one of the files, I'll see if there's anything I can do with it.

I, as most of us have gone through this at one time or another...

Although you may not recover your lost files it's a good time to setup a backup system...

I started using "RoboCopy"... It is a free utility built into the Windows OS. Once setup it will basically MIRROR any drive or subfolder to either another hard-drive or flashdrive. A poor mans redundant array you could say.

You can tell it to monitor any changes to the source drive and mirror an alternate drive or use the task scheduler... I have it set to Mirror my Documents folder to an external HD and my Flashdrive. This makes sure I have all the same files on all the drives, and it really works well...

Give it a try...

KC

thank you. how do I send you a file?

thank you. how do I send you a file?

Sent you a private message with my email address.

I had a hard disk ("C" drive) crash once.

Most of the time, when a hard disk crashes, it has simply lost the ability to respond to the internal boot up software. Removing the disk hardware from the computer and installing it in an external drive container is the cheapest and simplest way to recover the files. Data recovery services will never tell you this.

I bought a simple 40 dollar empty external disk box and installed the crashed drive in it. I could then read it as an external drive on another computer, and simply copied EVERY file off of it that I needed, cleanly. This included many autocad drawings.

It does not always work, but I would have only lost about 40 dollars to find out I needed a data recovery service rather than needlessly giving a service up to 500 bucks or more without even trying a cheaper method first.

My point is, you may still be able to recover clean copies of all your old files without much more expense if you still have the old disk. Just purchase a USB external disk container, put your old disk in it and plug it into another computer as an external drive. Once again, remember, it may not work. You may have lost more than just the boot capability, and there is no way of knowing.

It can not be stressed strongly enough that all of us should be backing up our files to minimize the amount of lost work. With external drives, portable drives, RAID, CDs, DVDs and flash drives there really is no reason to suffer a loss this bad.

It sounds like whoever did the initial recovery did not do a good job or the "crash" was something more than just losing the ability to boot the drive (drive head skipping across a platter?).

In my firm not allowed to work on the "C" drive, but only on a network drive in specially designated for each project directory. Backup of network drive is done automatically every hour. You can always call and ask the administrator version of the hour, two hours or day before yesterday ago. All the files are you not able to open - a problem the administrator. However, if you have worked on a local disk, the problem may be with you...

TigerDirect has 1 TB usb external hard drives for about 90 bucks. I've got one, makes a great backup drive.

TigerDirect has 1 TB usb external hard drives for about 90 bucks. I've got one' date=' makes a great backup drive.[/quote']

 

 

 

ooooooohh me likes! Thanks for the info!

I was hoping that the conversation would not go down this road, since I know the back-up should have been in place. I work at home. My husband is a network admin. I have been asking him for an automatic back up system but haven't gotten it. A case of the cobbler's children I guess. If my husband were in some other field, I am sure I would have just set something up my self. I do back up to an external drive, just not on an automatic basis. Lecturing at this point is not very helpful :-). I am now set up on Carbonite and am backing up into the "cloud". C'est la vie.

I was hoping that the conversation would not go down this road, since I know the back-up should have been in place. I work at home. My husband is a network admin. I have been asking him for an automatic back up system but haven't gotten it. A case of the cobbler's children I guess. If my husband were in some other field, I am sure I would have just set something up my self. I do back up to an external drive, just not on an automatic basis. Lecturing at this point is not very helpful :-). I am now set up on Carbonite and am backing up into the "cloud". C'est la vie.

I wasn't lecturing, just offering an option. Lots of folks don't know about TigerDirect, and they generally beat the chainstore retail prices. You do have to look closely at the ads, sometimes you are buying "reconditioned" merchandise, but I have never had any problems with anything I've gotten from them. Built this computer from thier stuff for half of what an equivalent system would have cost at the retailers.

I just found your email Kate, I've been gone most of the day. Will let you know if I have any luck.

Hi

I visited this site today and I saw your comment.

I experienced this issue today. I worked on my plans for 6 hours and autocad was closed without my save.

I found my file in autosave location but I couldn't open it.

I couldn't recover it by autocad recover.

I downloaded ******** but I don't know it works or no.

so any way I wanted to know about your experience... . can you help me for recovering my file?

First off, this thread is from 2011. You should have started a new thread rather than replying to such an old one. Also, I have removed the name of that file recovery software from your post. We do not provide free advertising for these types of companies who claim they can recover .dwg files.

As for your question, I'm not sure how you found an autosave file, since you closed the drawing normally. Autosave files are deleted when the program closes normally. They are only saved if the program crashes. But, if you did in fact locate an autosave file, did you rename the .sv$ extension to .dwg? That's how to open or recover an autosave file. If you already renamed the file and it won't open or recover, you will have to spend another 6 hours redoing the work you lost. Take this as a hard lesson learned and remember to always save your work.

FYI: If this thread starts attracting more posts about file recovery software it will be closed.