URGENT HELP: Corrupted File in Mathcad Express Prime 5.0!

[dfen0015]

Hey all,

I need some urgent help.

I was working on a school project, opened the file this morning and edited some units only. Saved and closed the laptop. (I do not know if this is related or not but when I closed the laptop, it shut down, when it should just go to sleep). 

I turned on my laptop back on a few minutes later to continue working,  and am now getting an error saying :
I opened the log file and noticed it is corrupt... I am attaching the file below. Is there a way to get around this? I have lots of important work on the document and I cannot afford to start over! 

Thank you 🙂 

[LucMeekes · Accepted solution]

I'm afraid I have two pieces of bad news for you:

1.

You cannot successfully just paste a picture in this forum. You have to have the picture saved in a file (e.g. .png) and use the 'Photos' button, that's just above the edit window, to insert a picture at the cursor position.

2.

Your file is really corrupt. A Prime file essentially is a .ZIP archive. You can rename the extension of the file from .mcdx to .zip and subsequently open the archive to explore its directory structure, with windows file explorer if you want. With your file, that results in an error. Consider the work lost.

I hope you have made a backup...

The cause of this corruption is uncertain. You say you've saved the file, then shut the lid of the laptop, essentially shutting down Windows as well. You're not the first to report corrupted files with (a version of) Prime. It happens on occasion. It might be Prime's doing, therefore. It could also be due to a badly managed cache for harddisk writes, and the write was still pending when Windows shut. It could be that Windows forced Prime to shut down (because it wanted to shut due to the lid closing), and Prime is slow... in everything, so it might have still been in the process of writing out the file and just got kicked out.

You could try to contact PTC's 'customer support' and see if they can help you. But the urgency you (probably) need sharply contrasts with the operation of PTC as customers generally experience.

I'll say no more, in order to refrain from writing abusive language.

Strength!
Luc

[dfen0015]

Thank you so much for the help and information! 

[Werner_E]

Attached is my best attempt to repair your file (format Prime 5).

There sure is still a lot missing - especially the embedded pictures (three of them I attach separately).

Others may be able to do a better job

[terryhendicott]

Hi,

C:\Users\Owner\Documents\B.ENG.(Hons.)\Year 4 - Final Year (3) VUT\Semester 2\Machine Desing - Mechanical Drives\Assignment\Computations.mcdx

Firstly it is easy to see the file was very important to you. Everyone learns the lesson about saving often by the loss of something important.

Secondly the aim here is for community members to help you with best practices and Pro Tips.

Most companies back up daily. For files I am going to develop over time I time stamp the savings by yymmdd each day. In that way at most only one day of work is lost.
190228-Computations.mcdx for today's version. yymmdd will sort themselves in a directory listing so you can see the latest version easily.

In practice often a job number appears before the yymmdd coding.

You will see posters on this forum using a similar system for their file names.

Cheers
Terry

[dfen0015]

Yeah makes sense! 

Well learn from the mistakes, sadly! But will definitely keep backing up more oftenly! I had a back up from a week before but there was still a big chunk of computations in between!