Winrar files missing

Hi,
Yesterday I did something stupid.
I thought I had extracted files from WinRAR, but I really just opened them.
I worked on the files and saved them often and closed them.
Today, I went to work on them again and they are nowhere to be found.
I realized what I had done. I looked it up, and tried to find the Temp files.
I have no idea which ones they are.
I searched based on the date modified, but I can't open a single one.
I have tried everything, but I really have no idea what I'm doing.
I would love to recover these files, as I had made many changes, and they are for work.
I feel like they are lost forever, but if anyone has any idea how I can recover these files, it would be amazing!
Thank you so much,
Erin:no:

Can you check in this folder path whether the files are viewable or not - C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Recent. If you cant find the file over there then you will end up repeating the work you just did. One last option, if this is a word document, you might be able to launch word, and then go to open or look at the recently accessed documents list and check if that works.

Unfortunately, no...they aren't there. It was an excel document and I went to open it from "recent documents" and the list was blank. :(
I searched everywhere, temp files, backup files, etc. etc.
It's ok though, I calmed down and repeated the work. I'll know better for next time. Thanks for the reply. :)
Erin