IT People: Can This Happen?

[luvsJack]

Is it possible for someone to save something on their hard drive one day and it just disappear by the next day? Also, can your password just change?

Here is the story: I am one of two secretaries for our dean of students, but I normally work in an office across campus from his. The other secretary works in the office directly in front of his and sort of directs traffic that comes in and out of the office.

Today she was out with a family emergency, so I had to work from her office. I get a call from the main campus that a form that is on her computer MUST be faxed today (it was supposed to be done yesterday). This form is part of two forms that needed to be completed and sent at different times and to different offices. She says she sent the first part down already to the other office.

First off, I cannot get her password to work. I tried several different ways and it would not work. So I text her (she couldn't receive calls where she was) and ask her the password, she says its the same. It doesn't work. She keeps saying its the same.

So I call our IT dept. and tell them the form that I need. They can see what is on her computer from there and look for the document so they can either print it and send to me or make it "shared" so I can go in under my own name and password and print the form. He cannot find the document. She tells me what name she saved it as, and he still cannot find it.

So finally, he says he will just reset the password so I can get in her documents. He reset it TO the password that she said it was in the first palce. (he never told me what it was but that would not work for him either).

So, I go in and search every file and every document and IT IS NOT THERE. But she swears it has to be there, even tells me where it should be on her desktop. Its not there.

Then I get a call that says the first document is not in the office it is supposed to be in. So I start looking for it and its not there either.

So, I am thinking that she just didn't do it. The boss? He thinks I just can't find it.

So is it possible that she DID do this and the computer just "lost" it somehow?

 

[NotUrsula]

If you're on a university campus it's just more likely that the file went onto the network somewhere rather than onto her own computer's hard drive.

If you can open the program that she would have used to fill the form, look at the "recent documents" tab and see what the last few things that were worked on were. If you can't see that, go into the same program, open something up and then start to save it -- and see what her default file destination is. 10 to 1 the missiing file ended up in the same place ... IF she really did save it.

(Note, I'm not an IT person, but I help people with file mgmt. issues all the time.)

 

[LadyZolt]

It's possible that she thinks she saved it, but really didn't. Usually, when you try to exit whatever program you are using to view something with, it will ask if you want to save changes or not. Also, many programs will automatically save changes as you go, but, again, not all of them will do this. If this is a Windows machine, you can usually see a list of the recent items it had opened by, for example, highlighting "Microsoft Office Word" in the "Start" menu. That will show you a list of the most recent 10 documents that were opened in it. So, you could open the program needed to view this document and see if there is a list of the last items it opened. If this document is not there, then she probably didn't save it.

It is also possible that it is on there under a different name or a name similar to what she thinks, but not identical. Again, in a Windows machine, you can do a search for it by name, or by file type, etc. So you could do a search for, for example, ".doc" and it will find all documents with that file extension. So, if it was a .pdf or whatever, you can search for it that way.

From what you described, with her not knowing the password and the file not being there with that name, etc., I wonder if maybe it is on a personal laptop or iPhone or something like that that she uses at work in addition to her work computer.

-Dorothy (LadyZolt)

 

[luvsJack]

If you're on a university campus it's just more likely that the file went onto the network somewhere rather than onto her own computer's hard drive.

If you can open the program that she would have used to fill the form, look at the "recent documents" tab and see what the last few things that were worked on were. If you can't see that, go into the same program, open something up and then start to save it -- and see what her default file destination is. 10 to 1 the missiing file ended up in the same place ... IF she really did save it.

(Note, I'm not an IT person, but I help people with file mgmt. issues all the time.)

Tried that, couldn't find it. We each tried it but it didn't work.

 

[NotUrsula]

There is only one other possibility that I can think of if the file was indeed saved -- could she have done the work via a web-hosted service like Google docs? Or on the website of the organization that it needs to be sent to? If so, perhaps the password that she gave you was her password for the website rather than the machine itself.

Right now I think your best bet to make your deadline is forget the form that she was supposed to have done and start over again from scratch if you can manage it.

 

[FireDancer]

It sounds like it doesn't exist. There are plausible though unlikely explanations for everything. One would be that she has a hidden TrueCrypt partition on her hard drive that the file is stored in. She could also have had the case wrong with her password (she keeps the caps lock on for example and didn't think to tell you). The exact sector of the disk which stored the pointer for the file could also have been damaged and resulted in that file disappearing from the file directory.

I think it is more likely that the file doesn't exist. We get calls all the time for passwords that have just "stopped working" or files that have "disappeared" and so far none of them have.

 

[luvsJack]

It's possible that she thinks she saved it, but really didn't. Usually, when you try to exit whatever program you are using to view something with, it will ask if you want to save changes or not. Also, many programs will automatically save changes as you go, but, again, not all of them will do this. If this is a Windows machine, you can usually see a list of the recent items it had opened by, for example, highlighting "Microsoft Office Word" in the "Start" menu. That will show you a list of the most recent 10 documents that were opened in it. So, you could open the program needed to view this document and see if there is a list of the last items it opened. If this document is not there, then she probably didn't save it.

It is also possible that it is on there under a different name or a name similar to what she thinks, but not identical. Again, in a Windows machine, you can do a search for it by name, or by file type, etc. So you could do a search for, for example, ".doc" and it will find all documents with that file extension. So, if it was a .pdf or whatever, you can search for it that way.

From what you described, with her not knowing the password and the file not being there with that name, etc., I wonder if maybe it is on a personal laptop or iPhone or something like that that she uses at work in addition to her work computer.

-Dorothy (LadyZolt)

Your last statement is most probable. She may have saved it on her laptop. And even if she remembered that she probably wouldn't tell me because she should not be taken student info home (I wouldn't have said anything though and she has really created a bigger problem by not telling me).

There is only one other possibility that I can think of if the file was indeed saved -- could she have done the work via a web-hosted service like Google docs? Or on the website of the organization that it needs to be sent to? If so, perhaps the password that she gave you was her password for the website rather than the machine itself.

Right now I think your best bet to make your deadline is forget the form that she was supposed to have done and start over again from scratch if you can manage it.

That's what I will be doing today as chances are she won't be there today either. I am hoping there are copies of the information needed in the office.

It sounds like it doesn't exist. There are plausible though unlikely explanations for everything. One would be that she has a hidden TrueCrypt partition on her hard drive that the file is stored in. She could also have had the case wrong with her password (she keeps the caps lock on for example and didn't think to tell you). The exact sector of the disk which stored the pointer for the file could also have been damaged and resulted in that file disappearing from the file directory.

I think it is more likely that the file doesn't exist. We get calls all the time for passwords that have just "stopped working" or files that have "disappeared" and so far none of them have.

She wouldn't have a clue how to hide anything on her hard drive. (not meaning that to sound mean, she just wouldn't). If the file does not exist and if there is no way for her to get the info to me today to generate this form, the proverbial stuff is going to hit the fan. Not by me but this has now involved our boss, the IT dept., the VP's office and the Business Manager who are all looking for these pieces of paper and know that they haven't been found. If she would have just said "I forgot, but here is the info you need. . ." everything would be where it was needed right now.

 

[golfgal]

I am assuming you did just a general search on the computer for the file, if not, run a search from the start menu. It is possible that she saved it elsewhere not realizing it.

 

[pooh17]

With the password being wrong and the file not being there makes me think you are looking on the wrong PC. Does she happen to use 2 PCs?