recovered word docs not opening correctly

[kipg]

this pertains only to word 2000 office professional!

i recently had to do a data recovery from my hd, among which were many .doc
files
(office2000). having them back on my system (xp, 32k), i notice that when i
roll the cursor over the file names, i see the various mb file sizes - and
all that looks 'normal.' HOWEVER when i actually click to open these various
documents, i got an error message regarding the converter mswrd632.

i looked up this error and performed the deletion of the registry key
concerning wordpad6 (i actually exported the key to my desktop in case i
need it).
i now no longer get the error message, but when the recovered word document
opens, it is full of garbled letters, symbols and whatnot. in a word:
unreadable/usable.

this problem only exists on these newly recovered documents - not my newly
created/saved docs - and in case you were curious - these recovered docs,
were not initially infected -and, as i already mentioned, appear to have the
correct
mb size. both the older recovered docs and newer ones were both created by
the same program (word 2000 office professional).

how do i make these recovered word docs 'normal'? i had the idea that if i
uninstalled my office 2000 suite and then reinstalled it - this might do the
trick. but i don't know. Any other suggestion?

oh, and i run xp, sp2 (yeah, i know i should have sp3, but i don't yet. if
you think it makes a difference, please elaborate).

otherwise, thanks for any help! ~k

 

[Graham Mayor]

You could uninstall the update that caused the problem, which will replace
the older converter - Run the Windows Control Panel add or remove programs.
Check the box at the top of the dialog to show updates. Locate the update
973904 and uninstall it.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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..

 

[kipg]

graham,

there wasn't any 'update' that caused the problem.
the problem arose as a result of a data recovery process. here is what
happened: a repair needed to be done in my o/s (xp, sp3), so i ran the
restore disc for my system. however there was not a point in this process
that gave me the option of 'repairing,' only 're-installing.' there are 5
steps involved in this: gathering data, updating, preparing to install,
installing, and finalizing. unfortunately, i did not discover this issue
until just before the 4th step - so i stopped the repairing attempt at that
point.

when i tried to get to my desktop, my computer indicated that the o/s
installation was incomplete and needed to finish, but i did not want to loose
my data. so instead, i ran a data recovery program and seemingly got back
most of my data - including the word docs i mentioned previously. i then
completed the o/s installation.

however when i open these docs now, many of them open in the manner that i
mentioned before: "garbled letters, symbols and whatnot." my issue has
nothing to do with an update.

before all this happened, i was interested in updating word, but the ms site
indicated there were none to be had.

so do you have any other suggestions?

~k

 

[Graham Mayor]

Unless you have a separate backup of the document files you may be out of
luck. It seems that the data recovery was not as complete as you would have
hoped.
If you want to send me one of the 'documents' to have a look at, I *may* be
able to tell if there is anything to recover from it.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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