recover temporary data

[doonee]

hello all

just experienced one of these mean powercuts again, and lost about an hour of work since that last save.

is there, by any chance, a utiliy that can recover my work from the huge temporay files PS leaves in the temp dir ?

or a way to do that manually, somehow ?

regards and thanks to all

d

[Swampy]

Awww, Doonee... Ya gotta hate that. Being in central Florida all my "computing life" I learned long ago that a quick Command+S (or whatever the keyboard shortcut for Save is on the PC" is a must. It's become such a habit with me when ever I complete some "step" in a project.

Probably not much you can do

[doonee]

Yea swampy, i know, but one gets carried away sometimes late at night and forgets. Even here in Brazil, where powercuts are our daily bread (as is Ctrl+C).

I'ts nothing too dramatic really in this case, but i thought id take a chance and ask.

Theres no "recover layer-bmp from tempfile" utility then, right ?

Aw well,
back to work then ...
regadrs and thanks
d

[Kraellin]

if you know that there is a temp file, and you know where it is, why not just go there and open it?

also, i dont know if PS has this, but some programs have an auto-save every x minutes. you might turn that on if PS has it.

Craig

[doonee]

..
i got the temp file allright ...
how do i open it ?
i renamed it to psd, but that would not do it.
i had a go at it with an extension checker, and was told that ist a dbf file ..

if anyone knows how to open a temp file i'm set.
rgds
d

[Kraellin]

.dbf... database file? if that's what it is, it may just be the save-undos file. psp saves all actions you do in a file on the harddrive. that's how it remembers how to undo and redo. but, this isnt an image file.

honestly, i dont know for sure, but i'm fairly sure that's not an image file.

here's what i could find on .dbf extensions:

DBF Database
DBF JetForm FormFlow Data File
DBF Oracle 8.x Tablespace File
DBF ACT! Main Database File (Best Software CRM Division)
DBF Psion Series 3 Database (Psion PLC)
DBF Abacus Law Data (Abacus Data Systems, Inc.)
DBF NovaBACKUP Backup Database (NovaStor Corporation)
DBF Alpha Five Table Data File (Alpha Software, Inc.)
DBF The Network Diary Database (CF Systems Ltd)

none of them look too promising.

Craig

[Swampy]

My understanding of a Temp file is that it is just that. It's usually the scratch disk or swap file area that a progam may assign the working file so that it can conserve memory. It usually gets deleted when you quit (exit) the program or shut down the computer.

On the Mac, these files are usually invisible.

dee dee

[doonee]

@craig
yea i know, dbf is a database file.
vector information can be stored this way.
or, information about positioning of images in layers ..

anyhow, best bet is that the extension identifier is wrong.
it often is, all it does is read headers and otherwise guess around.

the photoshop temp file is easy to find tho.
its called photoshoptempxxxxx, and its huge, 300 MB,
way to huge for a dbf by the way.
NYC phonebook is maybe 8 MB in a dbf.

so how would i go to try to open it, whatever is is ...
any idea ?


rgds
d

[doonee]

@swampy

not that its really important, cause it isnt in this case,
but what scratchfile of 300MB size will contain anything but images ?

i found a photoshop recovery app that says it can recover corrupt psd files.
but, alas, it cant handle the temp either ...
rgds
d

[Kraellin]

doonee,

again, i'm just guessing that this is the undo/redo file that saves all the actions one takes when editing an image. and, as such, it does NOT store the images themselves. it stores a text or binary description of what you did or un-did. to store each change as an image would take more harddrive space than your computer could handle. so, in essence, that temp file, if i'm right, is a database. it's a database of what you did and un-did to your image while you were working on it.

now, it might still be possible to recover this. if and that's a BIG if, you could open the file and change its header information so that it was now tied to another image and IF that other image's temp file could be removed as you tied this other one to it, you might be able to get it to work. but that's ALL theoretical on my part. i've never done this, nor would i even want to try with a 300 mb file and i'm also guessing you might have to alter ram while doing all this, since when you open up a new file to tie your image to in PS, it's going to create a new temp file for that one.

but, all this is based on the notion that this temp file IS the one you lost, which it may not be, and that it could be re-tied to a file and re-opened, which i've never tried. so, for me, this is a 'oh well, lost that one', but, i'm also NOT saying it couldnt be done. and, you might even get lucky and find someone that's done this or has a program for doing this.

so, good luck

Craig

[doonee]

this is based on the notion that this temp file IS the one you lost,

thats a yes for i had just cleaned temp an hour before ...

nor would i even want to try with a 300 mb file

me neither , :

for me, this is a 'oh well, lost that one',

i agree completely.
i guess im in my curious phase or something.

if it were really important id already be sitting doing the work again.

....... not withstanding that it would be nice to know, for all of us, if there was a painless way to do this ...
(painless=less work than it took to create the image)

thanks !
d

[Kraellin]

....... not withstanding that it would be nice to know, for all of us, if there was a painless way to do this ...
(painless=less work than it took to create the image)

indeed. maybe someone will come along that has that answer.

Craig

[Steve Conway]

OK, here I go jumping in with my "two cents worth" from my "advice that came a little too late" file.

I have avoided losing work many times by having my computer and related accoutrements plugged into a APC device. The battery won't run your computer for long if the power stays off, but you will be able to save what you are working on.

I grew up in the "lightning capitol of the world" where Dee Dee lives. And you can loose power pretty quickly. I now live in north Florida which can sometimes get pretty rough too, with our almost daily summer afternoon thunder storms.

ab

[doonee]

I know, the international jargon for this type of device seems to be 'no-break' .. . They're popular everywhere you find powercuts. I've seen them from India to Brazil and elsewhere, even selfmade ones from car batteries etc.

Yet, in spite of all efforts, data still manage to get lost sometimes....
I figure its always good to know wherher temp data are recoverable, cause, once the 'lit hit the can', thats what we'd all like to know ....

best regards and thanks
s

[wwwluckyro]

So... I have your problem. How can I recover my work from a temp file?
The Temp file is 3 GB

What progs did you find?