If the contents of the aedb folder contain an auto-saved version (i.e. a bunch of files with a trailing ‘+’ character), you may be able to recover that by doing the following: 1) copy model_name.aedt to an adjacent file named model_name.aedt.auto 2) in the aedb folder, open the .config+ file and copy the LastUpdateTimeStamp id (i.e. LastUpdateTimeStamp=1491431289) 3) open the new model_name.aedt.auto file and replace the LastUpdateTimeStamp to match what was in the .config+ file. After this, when you open the aedt file, Desktop will prompt you about autosave. Choose the replace option.