[meg95]

My roommate has now lost 2 college papers in the past month and is blaming me. I want to help her find a solution so I can stop hearing about it (and so she's not wasting her time doing work twice), but I admit I am at a loss for anything she will accept.
So it has happened to her twice now - one night she was sitting by the computer and after looking down at her text book and looking back up a paragraph & 3 graphs were gone.
Today she walked out of the room for a minute, came back and 2 hrs of work just completely gone, just a blank word doc saved to the name her file was supposed to be.
No one else was even on that floor of the house.
No one is going up hitting the delete key.
She's using a laptop and suspect it's somehow an issue of a sensitive build in mouse (cat knocking it just right?)
She thinks it's a bandwidth problem with too many people on the cable modem (how I end up getting blamed). We have explained that Word isn't associated with any bandwidth issues, she's not believing us since it's the only common denominator she has noticed.
Went to the recovery program and was able to retrieve about 5% of two hours worth of work, it wasn't much of a prize.
Help! Can anyone else think of a solution? Possible virus? Any ideas appreciated.
Thanks!

[bones252100]

This problem did sometimes arise in my 25 years of on-site customer support. We called it an I/O problem when calling back to the office. I/O means Idiot Operator. Other responders may come up with different answers but this answer might be right.

[JBeaucaire]

Of all the possible suspicions to have, this has to be the EASIEST to test.

1. Open a document
2. paste in a bunch of garbage, pictures, random crap
3. save it with a unique name
4. take a picture of the screen with a camera
5. disconnect the keyboard
6. leave the computer as is for several hours...watch movies, whatever
7. go back in and check the screen...any changes?

If there is malware on the computer doing a disservice to your documents, this should be enough to trigger it.

If nothing goes wrong, then no offense intended, but I am absolutely confident in declaring the girl's story:

a) completely made up to make others feel guilty about her lack of productivity
b) not made up, she thinks it's happening, and it's not... where the I/O moniker above might be appropriate.

Not everyone who's an I/O is able to accept this as a possibility, in which case nothing you do will help. So ignore her rantings. Let her develop a work process that protects herself from these sort of "goings on"... but don't let her make it YOUR responsibility.

"Wow, I'm so sorry that happened to you. Hope you work it out."

[meg95]

Ok thanks all. I was hoping there was something I was "missing" but looks like I just need to be a good friend, shut up, and stay off line while she's doing her homework. What? No Google! GASP!