Drawing file GONE!

[AllenJessup]

I've never seen this one. I havd a file open in Civil 3D. I tried to open another file and it stuck opening at 12%. After 10 minutes or so I gave up and tried to close C3D. I got the Windows program is not responding message and chose close the program.

After I had close the program the first drawing file, not he one I couldn't open, is gone of the server. I've run a search of the server and both my hard drives. It isn't there. There is a .BAK file and an .SV$ file. But NO .DWG file. Luckily the .SV$ file wasn't that old and opened fine.

This is scary. I don't know how that could have hapened. Civil shouldn't delete a file. It isn't realy that file it's altering. It's a copy in RAM and temporary file. It isn't until a save that the file is overwritten and a .BAK should be created first. I just tried to find it again because after writing this I couldn't believe it. The DWL files are there. But no drawing file.  ???

Allen

Civil 3D 2011, Version 2, Raster Design 2011
Windows 7 Pro, 64 bit

Dell Precision T7400, Xenon X5460, 3.2 GHz, 4 GB Ram
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600, 768MB - Driver Version: 8.17.12.7614 (276.14)

[antoniovinci]

I do not believe that, miss Allen: period.

Please call your IT crowd: they will find that missing file, dead or alive, trust me.

[Westhills]

Sounds like someone accidentially hit the delete key during your load.  I assume you checked your recyclye bin? And if you have windoes 7 there is always the previous version tool.

[AllenJessup]

Oh. I'm pretty sure that the actually data is still on the disk. It's just not accessible. IT could probably recover it if I had to push them. But I wont because I have an SV$ file from minutes before. I've already recovered that.

Allen

[AllenJessup]

I don't think hitting the delete key would erase a file just because it was open. I didn't have it highlighted in Explorer or anything. I was on a Novel server. So not recycle bin or previous version available. Actually you reminded me that I could run a Novel Salvage from here. I didn't turn up that file either.

Allen

[atwitsend74 · Accepted solution]

Check to see if your .bak file is marked read only.  I know that (at least with C3D 09 and before) if it is, the save command will delete the dwg file and create a .tmp file.  It may have happened to your file before the open command failed and you didn't notice until after.

That's the only thing I've ever seen delete a drawing file.

[AllenJessup]

No. It's not marked read only.

[jmayo-EE]

Bizarre. You sure your reseller didn't ship you the limited edition Houdini release? 🙂

[AllenJessup]

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@atwitsend74 wrote:

the save command will delete the dwg file and create a .tmp file.  It may have happened to your file before the open command failed and you didn't notice until after.

That's the only thing I've ever seen delete a drawing file.

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I found the .TMP files. Could it possibly have been an Autosave? Anyway. If I rename any of the .TMP files or the ones beginning with "atmp" I get a valid drawing. Luckily I could start with the .SA$ file and have been working right along.

Allen

[jmayo-EE]

Thanks for the handy info Jason.

[atwitsend74]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the handy info Jason.

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No problem!  Especially if you use vault, and someone adds the .bak file, they tend to become marked read only.  That's one I've had to address in our office on more than one occasion.

[AbsKelvin]

We had something similar happen when the full path to the file was very long. Unfortunately, I don't remember the specifics.

[AllenJessup]

The path is a little long but not huge. I believe that Jason's right about the failure happening during a save. I found the TMP files he mentioned and could have recovered the drawing from there if I'd needed to.

Allen