Word 2007 error when opening file

[roniaelm]

Can you help me recover a file I desperately need for a speech I am preparing
for this Sat? For some reason when I open my word file I recieve the
following eror:

The file wedding speech.docx cannot be opened because there are problems
with the contents.

The file is corrupt and cannot be opened.

When I click ok another dialog box opens with the following error.

Word found unreadable content in "wedding spech.docx". Do you want to
recover the contents of this document? If you trust the source of this
document, click Yes.

Again when I click Yes the file does not open but I am prompted with another
error.

The file Anna wedding speech.docx cannot be opened because there are
problems with the contents

Microsoft Office cannot open this file because some parts are missing or
invaild.

Per other tips I have seen on the net, I have downloaded the SP2 package and
that has not helped and I have tried the zipping and unzipping tip which also
did not help. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone has any
suggestions/solutions!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Have you tried using the Open and Repair option directly? In the Open
dialog, select the file, then click the arrow beside the Open button and
choose Open and Repair.

If that doesn't work, then start rewriting. Do NOT save to or open from any
removable media; instead copy to/from the hard drive before using the
document.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Terry Farrell]

Open & Repair doesn't work on docx/dotx type file types. Obviously the
document has become corrupt. You may be able to use the Recover Text from
Any File option. Obviously all formatting will be lost though.

 

[Tony Jollans]

You could try opening it with OpenOffice, or if you send it to me, I will
have a look at it.

 

[dgarza]

If you still have access to a computer with Office 2002 or 2003 you can
install it and the Compatability Pack. This should allow you to open the
docx document then save it to a doc so you can open it in 2007.

 

[mig89]

I have the exact same problem with a paper I have to deliever next week. How
can I solve it? I've tried everything and wasn't able to repair my file.

 

[mig89]

This is my file: http://rapidshare.de/files/48993406/Investigaci_n.docx.html

Can someone help me recover it, please? Thank you

 

[Tony Jollans]

I'm afraid that file is way beyond my expertise to repair. I hope you have a
backup.

Whilst, from a cursory check, the rest of the file appears as though it may
be valid, the first 4096 bytes have been overwritten with binary zeroes. The
first 60% or so of this is package structure information that might be
rebuildable, the rest is the beginning of the zipped document body and vital
parts are missing. Did you, perhaps, save it direct to removable media?

I have written a little about this, see
http://www.wordarticles.com/Shorts/Corruption/Formats.htm if you are
interested. It might explain, but it will not help you recover.

 

[Terry Farrell]

I had a quick look too. Even breaking open the zip files shows the substance
of the document is corrupt beyond recognition. As Tony suggests, it looks
like it has been saved to dodgy media.

 

[mig89]

Thank you for your help Tony and Terry.

What happened was that I saved it into my hardrive, but a few days ago, the
hardrive became unformated (i don't know if the word exists, but I wasn't
able to run windows nor repairing it, nor reinstalling it without formating
the hardrive). I left the hardrive at a PC clinic but they didn't recover
docx files, so when I got the drive again, I used one of this programs to
recover files, but the file was corrupted.

If I try to recover the file using another program is it possible to get a
not corrupted file? Or have I lost forever my document?

 

[mig89]

I forgot to say one thing: I have an older working version of the document.
Can it help me recovering the corrupted one?

 

[Tony Jollans]

With the kind of unfortunate problem you describe, I really do not know.
Different recovery programs do sometimes work differently and you may be
able to recover some, or all, of the missing content if - and it's a big
if - it still remians on your disk. I would not be hopeful, though.

It should be possible to recover headers, footers, footnotes, etc. (I forget
exactly what else I saw in your file) but the document body is, I'm afraid,
almost certainly gone.

 

[mig89]

Thank you once again. And how can I recover the footers? I had some important
information there.

 

[Terry Farrell]

It has been known for the free Open Office to open corrupt Word documents.

You should be able to open the Footers. I've no longer got a copy of the
document to test but try renaming the document by changing the extension
from .docx to .zip. Then open the zip file in an unzipper such as WinZip
(Vista or Win7 will open it without need for a separate utility). You will
then see the component parts of the document: the Footer file should be
obvious and will open in Word 2007 if you double-click the footer component
file.

Terry

 

[Tony Jollans]

There is nothing of consequence in the footers (just a page number I
think). There are 11 footnotes, the contents of which might be interesting
to you. I can post them here if you wish. There are also three charts but I
don't know how to extract them easily off the top of my head - if you are
interested in them I will take a look.

 

[mig89]

Thank you both, I've recovered my footnotes.

It has been known for the free Open Office to open corrupt Word documents.

You should be able to open the Footers. I've no longer got a copy of the
document to test but try renaming the document by changing the extension
from .docx to .zip. Then open the zip file in an unzipper such as WinZip
(Vista or Win7 will open it without need for a separate utility). You will
then see the component parts of the document: the Footer file should be
obvious and will open in Word 2007 if you double-click the footer component
file.

Terry




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