Need Help Recovering Corrupted Word File

[craZy18gurl]

A MS Word file of mine seems to be corrupted. Don't know how it happened, just happened.

When I try opening the file, the following message shows;

'The Office Open XML file (name of file) cannot be opened because there are problems with the content.'

The details button states the 'file is corrupted and cannot be opened'. I click ok and another message shows asking if I want to recover the content of this document. I click yes but then the previous message shows again.

I am unable to open it in Notepad or Wordpad either.

I tried some file recovering programs, two of which didn't seem to work, another just...wasn't working really.

I am using Microsoft Word 2007, the file is a .docx. Any help I can get would be most appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Ultiweap]

Normally when files like word don't work we try to open it with notepad or wordpad but as you mentioned you already did it so I don't really know what can be done for that.

 

[Daproblemis]

What amagnien advised normally works. I see this several times a year at work. This is not suppose to work, but i have had some success with it. Make a copy of the file to play with. Change the extention to .doc and try the above. No luck, change it to .txt Other than that, i would have to have the actual file to work with and recover.

Good Luck

 

[Ultiweap]

Yes it can work but sometime when the file has been detected by windows to have its program its a little difficult to change the extension.

 

[gbhall]

If the word file is important, you could download OpenOffice word processor and try that. I find it will often open various MS Office files that Office chokes on.

When you install Open office, do not set it as the default for office doucumet types, and then you can use it in an on-demand way, by starting it and then openeing a file, or hold down shift while you right click a document and chose from the 'Open With' option.

Finally, run chkdsk /f on your hard drive to see if the entire drive is getting corrupted.

 

[Ultiweap]

Also make a Virus check and Spyware check to determine if there isn't a virus infecting your PC.

 

[craZy18gurl]

Opening it in Notepad or Wordpad just gives me garbage characters.

I tried converting it, that didn't work.

I made sure there is no virus, spyware, malware or anything like that.

I guess I can rewrite the whole document again, the bother it may be, but I just wanted to make sure first if there is any possible way to recover it.

 

[Bobbye]

The .docx file extension if for a MS Office Word 2007- is this the version you are trying to open the file from?

If it is not, and you are attempting to open the document in an earlier version of Word, see this for instructions:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100444731033.aspx

 

[craZy18gurl]

Yeah I'm using MS Word 2007. I mentioned that in my first post.

 

[Bobbye]

I asked you if the file was created in MS Office 2007. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I do understand that you are "using" MS Office 2007 to try and open the file.

 

[craZy18gurl]

Oh yes, sorry. The file was created in MS Office Word 2007.

 

[Bobbye]

See if this will help- in earlier versions of Word, first sign of problem and we'd tell people to zap all the 'normal.dot templates. It's a bit different here:

The installation process for Office Word 2007 renames Normal.dot to Normal11.dot. The default for Office Word 2007 is the new Normal.dotm template. By default, Normal11.dot and Normal.dotm are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\AppData\Microsoft\Templates.

Check the rest of the info and consider deleting these renamed templates and see if you can open the file.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179177.aspx

If you are not familiar with this, please be sure to read the information before you delete anything.