"Recovered" file now has symbols instead of words!

[grants04]

Help! I was just finishing a document when Word 2003 (Vista OS) crashed. I
have it set to autosave every 5 minutes but both the original (repaired) and
recovered (repaired) document now have symbols where the characters used to
be. how can I recover this document in English????

 

[Terry Farrell]

The symptoms would indicate that the file is totally corrupt. But you can
try the following:

Open Word and use File, Open, select the document and choose Open & Repair
If that fails, Use File Open, select Recover Text from Any File from the
File Type dialog, select and open the document
If that fails, try opening it in WordPad
If that fails, try opening it in Notepad.

If they all fail, it is corrupt beyond repair.

Did you try saving it to removable media or your local HDD?

 

[grants04]

Thank you for the help and info. I will try those options. I tried saving
it to an external HD. I've used it for two years without incident. Who
knows...

Thanks again.

 

[Terry Farrell]

External HDD are usually safe but other forms of REM media such as flash
memory, CDRs, floppies are deadly.

Terry