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.