Legit Reviews

Hi, we've got a word file on a USB memory stick which has been corrupted beyond Words ability to recover.
The file is about 13Mb, and opens to display a page full of squares!
Opening in other programs such as notepad/wordpad/openoffice meets with similar results - blank, # or squares again!
Is there any way to retrieve the information in the file?
Many thanks.

http://www.repairmyword.com/

I used that when I still used Word but it only works on older versions, not the docx format.

You could also try a file recovery program to see if that will find it hidden or else (if I remember correctly) the draft version that Word saves. I always thought Word had a draft version it saved while you worked on the doc and then deleted when you exited so you may be able to find that either on the usb drive or the folder office uses for temp storage.

Did you try opening it in Libreoffice or Openoffice?

I been using LibreOffice as my main MS office app, however you may have some success with http://www.word-fix.com/
maybe give that a shot and see if you can get your document (docx) back.

Not sure if you found your answer... but I found this fix when I had to fix a broken Word document. It worked beautifully!

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/offi ... elp&auth=1

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I doubt it. I assume that you can save a utility called SQL Server Recovery Toolbox. It is a powerful tool which I've heard a lot of good reviews. I hope it will help you. http://www.oemailrecovery.com/word_repair.html
For the future, NEVER work on a file stored on a flash drive / USB memory stick. Instead copy the file to the computer to work on it, and when done copy it back. That way there is plenty of space for all the temp files that are needed by Word (and other applications.)

Here's something to look at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... n-us;87856
https://community.office365.com/en-us/f/172/t/269739

Thank you all for your advice! The issue has been resolved.