Hi Deborah,

 No problem whatsoever making contact Deborah. The file is indeed corrupt. First of all, it’s always a very bad idea to work directly from a file on a memory stick regardless of the software application. This is particularly true of a more complex application such as NVivo. Working from a memory stick slows down communication with the application considerably. More critically, there is no recycle bin so files lost are lost forever. It advisable to copy the file onto the local machine, work on it and copy it back. Memory sticks should only be used for transporting or backing up files but never for working on them. There may be something we can do. Can you check the memory stick and see if there is a second file there called ‘PhD Diversity 07-5-13’_LOG’. This file will be beside the NVivo file called ‘PhD Diversity 07-5-13.NVP’ The NVivo project file has a blue round icon while the log file has a yellow icon that looks a bit like a barrel. If this LOG file is present, can you copy BOTH files to a new location on your computer and then open NVivo and attempt to open the file using File->Open command. Let me know if this works. 

Please, please, please, backup your files. You can do this by doing File->Manage->Copy Project. Do this regularly during and after sessions to prevent the kind of loss you experienced today. If this recovery method as outlined does not work, I have another option which may be worth a try.   

Let me know!

Kind regards,

This problem was resolved via direct communication. This user had attended one of our treaining workshops in the University of Warwick and so had direct support from us. We were able to recover her data. Please, never use USB sticks to run or store files. They should only be used a s means of ranscporting files or creating backup copies. NEVER open or run an NVivo file direct from a USB stick. Deborah was lucky on this occassion but could easily have lost her data.