retrieving my file
 

My hard drive isn't working (new crappy comp defect) so I'm working of my disk. Something made my comp feeze and I had to reboot. Just before it froze I was about to save an important file on a disk so crap, it didn't save. If I go into 'File System', then 'User' or 'Temp', I see a file that prob is it. I've tried to open it with 'Office Word Possessor' and many other programs. I know there is a way to retrieve this but please give me some suggestions.

Try copying it to an external drive since your hard drive is bad. If your system doesn't boot, boot up with a rescue disk. You can use the "cp" command to copy a file. That's what it is for.

Also look for a file in the same location with an ~ at the end. Also look for hidden files. A word processor or editor will often create a temporary copy of the original incase something bad happens to the original or the program crashes.

Thank for your input. I am getting another hard drive to retrieve my past files. Right now I need to retrieve a more recent file and I see it in a temp file but am unable to open it.

What is the name of the file and where is it. If it starts with a hyphen that can be tricky.

You need to end options with double hyphens and then use the file name in the first argument:
cp -a -- '-tempfile' /mnt/destdir/.

Do you have read access to the directory. You will need both 'r' and 'x' permissions on the directory. The 'x' bit lets you enter the directory.