Corrupt Word Files

[Charlotte L.]

I have a number of old Word files (created as far back as 1989) that
will not open in Word 2004. I get the following message when I try to
do so: "Word cannot open this document. The document might be in use
or might not be a valid word document." I tried the following fixes
with no luck:

1. I tried to open the file from within Word.
2. I tried renaming the documents.
3. I dragged the com.microsoft.word.plist file out of the Preferences
Folder before starting Word.
4. I have Repaired Disk Permissions using Disk Utility.

Finally, I did manage to open some of the files in Word 98 but must
convert each file first and find that I often lose most of the
formatting and graphics.

Are these files permanently damaged or is there some way to recover
them? Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks very much.

 

[Charlotte L.]

Elliott,
Thank you very much for your response and offer to help. I believe I
have access to Word 5.1 at work. If that doesn't work out, I may take
you up on your offer of opening and resaving the documents after all!
-CL

 

[Charlotte L.]

John,
Thank you very much for your response - I'm happy to hear the files
aren't permanently damaged. I read in an earlier post that copying
files via a LaCie drive often create this problem. The Word documents
I've had trouble with were transferred from an older computer using a
LaCie drive - is there something I can do to my LaCie drive to prevent
this sort of problem in the future?
Thanks for the help,
CL

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Charlotte -

I've been watching this thread but haven't jumped in as you were in
excellent hands, but your question on LaCie drives was irresistible.

Let me first qualify what I am posting because you don't specify what type
of 'drive' you mean - LaCie makes Hard drives, CD drives DVD drives, USB
Keys (often referred to as flash or thumb drives), etc. I've used a number
of their products over the years & have never had anything but excellent
performance & results. As with any mfr, I'm sure they have had their share
of faulty product, but overall they have a good reputation.

I can't remember seeing the post you mentioned, but it may have been from
someone who was essentially 'shooting the messenger'. Another possibility is
that the poster had been trying to save to or open files directly from a CD
or USB flash drive, which is almost certain to cause file damage regardless
of *what* brand it is.

Regards |:>)

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Charlotte:

Naaaahhhh I open Word documents all the time on external drives. The
only one you need to avoid is a floppy drive, and those are not "that"
common on Macs any more Floppy drives have problems running out of
space and dropping "chunks" of files. A Word document won't stand that: you
must either read it all, or you can't read any of it.

External drives on older versions of Mac OS had problems if they were
designed for PCs and forgot that a Mac file is in two parts: the Resource
Fork and the Data Fork. But I've never seen the problem on OS X.

However, those files are NOT corrupt They're in an old Word format that
is no longer available. It's the old text-based Word for DOS format known
as "Word.Document.2". You send 'em to me and I'll have them open in a New
York minute for you.

All converters are programs: fairly large and quite active. They make good
targets for virus writers and are difficult to secure against that.

Microsoft made a decision some years back to drop support for that converter
because it required too much work to maintain it, and nobody used it any
longer.

It shipped with everything up to Mac Word 6 and PC Word 97, if I recall. In
Word 97/98 Microsoft adopted the new Word.Document.8 format, which is what
everything is using now.

Because Microsoft updated their Word 2 converter for Windows 95/Word 97, it
still works on latest version of Windows. Windows XP still runs code
designed for earlier versions of Windows (actually, Windows XP will run code
designed for MS DOS!! There are still idiots out there who believe that
this "proves" that Windows XP is built on DOS. It's not -- it's nothing
like it -- it's a very clever emulation, much like Classic or Rosetta).

However, the old Word 2 converter for Mac OS will NOT run on Mac OS X.
Microsoft found it would cost too much to get the Mac version of that
converter running reliably on OS X, so they dropped it. They've dropped it
on the PC too, but the old version still works there.

That's your only problem: the old converter won't run on the latest Mac OS.
It will run on the latest Windows

I see Microsoft has now put its foot down and withdrawn said converter from
its download site (not surprising: it has a minor security hole in it that
they don't want to spend huge amounts of money rewriting to patch).
However, it's all over the net. I found it here:
http://wadict.soas.ac.uk/download/convpack.exe

If you have a friend with Windows Office 97 or later, download that file and
run it to add the old Word converters to PC Word. They'll work just fine


Cheers

John,
Thank you very much for your response - I'm happy to hear the files
aren't permanently damaged. I read in an earlier post that copying
files via a LaCie drive often create this problem. The Word documents
I've had trouble with were transferred from an older computer using a
LaCie drive - is there something I can do to my LaCie drive to prevent
this sort of problem in the future?
Thanks for the help,
CL

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

MacLink Plus can convert Word files back as far as version 4
http://www.dataviz.com/products/maclinkplus/mlp_xlators.html

-Jim

 

[Charlotte L.]

CyberTaz,

I agree, I've had very good luck with LaCie Hard drives. The one I
used to transfer the files (that I later could not open) is a 160 GB
Firewire Hard Drive (which I initially erased and reformatted for MAC.)
For your reference, the older post I mentioned is entitled "Word
cannot open this document" and was posted on Oct 8, 2004 by lady glen.
I only brought it up to exhaust all possible explanations for my files
not opening.

Cheers,
CL

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Charlote -

Thanks for the detail. I reviewed the thread & can see why you would
raise the question. IIRC, that was an isolated issue with the driver
for a specific LaCie drive series. As John suggested, I think there may
have been a problem with the Mac driver, too, but am not sure if it was
the same drive series.

FWIW, I agree with John that you shouldn't have any problem with the
drive you describe. If any doubt, run Disk Utility to Repair or use
DiskWarrior or TTP to check it out & repair or reformat as may be
needed. All indications, though, are that old format of the files is
the source of the problem.

Good Luck |:>)