i just lost a lot of work and it said it successfully saved a tool but i don't know where it is and the only thing i could find were a zbr file and a zzz file in the recovered files folder. how do i open a zzz file in zbrush?

ZZZ files are temporary Zbrush files, it's how it names ZTLs while he's writing into them (=saving).
If your file hasn't been renamed to ZTL, it's probably that the save process didn't end correctly, and it seems highly unlikely that you'll be able to open it (you can always try renaming it to ZTL yourself and opening it in Zbrush, but I doubt that will work).

yeah i tried and it didn't work. thanks for the explanation though. now i know what a .zzz file is.

oh well, work is always better when you have to do it a second time right?