Writer spell check problem and crash with poor recovery

[andy <geek_show@dsl.pipex.com>]

Hi all

Debian Etch running OOo2.04
Wrote a document and had saved previously. Worked on it again today for 
several hours. Went to save it in a *.doc format and the whole program 
crashed. Auto recovery only recovered what had previously been saved - 
nothing that had been worked on today.

Have looked in .openoffice2/user/backup and nothing there. Only have 
(apparently) binary files in /tmp which cannot be read by any editor 
(vi, joe, gedit, kate, ee).

Prior to this, spell-check had stopped working: neither manual nor 
as-you-write checks working despite proper dictionaries set up.

Not sure if these are connected.

1. How can I recover the missing data off of the crashed document
2. What caused this and how do I prevent its re-occurrence
3. What gives with the spell-check

Thanks

--

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"