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I was writing a dissertation with LaTeX tonight and just after my last saving my PC crashed and turned off. After restarting my .tex file it was all white! But, I can move the cursor within... I used to save my work every time I write a piece of sentence. I'm in big troubles. This is an emergency. I need your help, just to recover the contents at my last. Thank you in advance.

Ruben
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Yusto
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    Welcome to TeX.SX! Unfortunately, your question seems to be off-topic as it does not fall within the scope of TeX or its related systems. – Ruben Jul 04 '15 at 23:27
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    Maybe the question should be migrated to Super User or to Lifehacks ;) – Ruben Jul 04 '15 at 23:30
  • ren't th edited files automat-ically svec aat regular intervals? Check with the ‘Recent files’ submenu, in the Files menu. As a last resort, a recovery software like Recuva. – Bernard Jul 04 '15 at 23:47
  • Strictly speaking, the content is still available in the PDF. You will likely have to re-type the document, though. – Sean Allred Jul 05 '15 at 00:29
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    Not the best time to say so. But: *Data you don't back up is data you don't mind losing. End of story.* You are not seriously writing a dissertation and not keeping independent backups, surely? A disk can fail at any time. For a dissertation, off-site backup is also crucial. For my PhD, I had backups on different continents. Anyway, do *not* work from a disk on which a file was saved if you are serious about recovering it. Every write to that disk is potentially overwriting data you might recover. At this point, this information is likely useless to you. Look for auto-saved backups. – cfr Jul 05 '15 at 02:42
  • Sorry, but file recovery is off-topic here: there is nothing TeX related in files getting corrupted. – Joseph Wright Jul 05 '15 at 06:45
  • @cfr -- reasonable advice, but read the question again, please: "just after my last saving my PC crashed ". still off topic, but really a sad case. – barbara beeton Jul 05 '15 at 12:40
  • @barbarabeeton I agree that it is sad, but I stand by what I said. Saving a file is not backing it up. Of course, if bad things happen just after saving, you don't have a backup of your most recent changes. But you should have a backup of the version you saved last week or yesterday or an hour ago. I understood the question but, the fact is that the best advice on this has to be heeded before bad things happen. Afterwards, it is too late. However, not working from the disk as soon as you realise the problem may offer the possibility of recovering some data. ... – cfr Jul 05 '15 at 13:00
  • As for auto-saved backups, it depends on the editor. Mine would not be useful in this situation as the previously saved .backup would be overwritten when I opened the file. But different editors do things differently, so it is certainly worth investigating and probably the best hope here. Incidentally, a student's advisor should tell them to backup, I think. Mine asked me about it and kept a backup from me on CD in his filing cabinet. Backups are so crucial that not pointing this out is a very significant oversight. Bad things are all too likely to happen. – cfr Jul 05 '15 at 13:04
  • @cfr -- point made. (my "saving" ritual usually includes making a copy as soon as the file is closed; it's so automatic now that i sometimes make rash assumptions.) – barbara beeton Jul 05 '15 at 13:09

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