OOo won't open document

[akynos]

so i wrote a 28 page paper. tried to save it to my flash drive because OO kept freezing when i tried to manually save. (auto save was turned on and working)
after i manually "saved" not only did i not see the file on my flash drive, when i tried to open it from my computer it brings up a dialogue box that reads:
ASCII FILTER OPTIONS
then gives these property options with these default settings:
Character set: Eastern Europe (windows 1250)
default fonts: Times new roman
language: english USA
paragraph break: (is set to) CR & LF - (other options are) CR LF

when i click ok it begins to open my document in gibberish. open pages well over the 100 page mark with nothing but pure gibberish.

how do i recover this document? it's my school paper that's past due now and i need it. please tell me someone how to recover this document.

and when i try to change any of the options it's the same result. what happened?

[keme]

What is the name of the file (filename as it appears in Windows explorer)?

Does your file have an icon, to show that it's associated with the installed OpenOffice.org?

Can you open other documents you've written?

Can you create new documents and save them properly?

[RoryOF]

Search your system for a filename.bak, replacing filename with the name of your file.

What other programs were you running at the time?

It was very unwise to commit so much work and effort on an obviously unstable system. You could, in the hope of stability, have migrated to Wordpad or even Notepad, where you might at least have preserved your content, even if inelegantly formatted. Best get your computer fixed.

[Hagar Delest]

See in your backup profile perhaps (see [Tutorial] The OOo user profile).

But basically, never save directly to an external drive! USB transfer is far less robust than HD access.