Unable to recover file.

B

Brian Abbott

After a brief power outage, I was unable to recover a
WORD file I had been working on. I had saved the file
numerous times over the past week. The file name still
exists in the directory and the file opens with WORDPAD
(with loss of formatting). Programs open at the time of
power loss were WORD and EXCEL. When I try to open the
file with WORD97, I get the following error message -
"Word cannot open the document. Try one or more of the
following,...".

With no luck,I tried a system restore in Windows XP Pro
to no avail.

Any ideas?
 
B

Beth Melton

Hi Brian,

If the document is corrupt here are a few things to try:

If the document contains graphics then in Word go to
Tools/Options/View and turn in "Picture Placeholders" and "Draft
Font".
If the document contains links then on the General tab make sure
"Update automatic links at Open" is turned off.

Try using a document link to retrieve the corrupt document:
- Create a new document
- Copy some text from another document
- In the new document use Edit/Paste Special and select "Paste Link"
- Go to Edit/Links and change the source of the link to the document
you can not open

If this works then return to Edit/Links and break the link to the
source document.

For additional troubleshooting steps/methods take a look at this
article:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

You also try a recovery utility such as those from
http://www.officerecovery.com/, however they aren't free downloads.
:)

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
Top