How can I recover the lost Word files?

How to recover a deleted Word document?

The first step to recover the deleted Word document is to look for it in the Recycle Bin! If the document is not in the Recycle Bin, and you are sure it has been deleted recently, then use the Data Recovery Wizard to recover the deleted Word document.

How to recover a lost Word document?

Microsoft Word will "lose" documents in certain situations. For example, it may lose a document if Word is forced to quit unexpectedly, or if your computer has a power interruption while you’re writing, or if you close the document without saving changes.

If you don't know how the Word document was lost, if it was deleted a long time ago, or if it has been overwritten or corrupted, then it is best to use Data Recovery Wizard. This product is often able to recover Word documents even when parts of the original file have been overwritten, by searching for previously saved copies made while the document was being created and edited.

Search for the Original Document.

1. In Windows, click Start, Search, and then For Files or Folders.
2. In the Search for files or folders named box, type the file name.
3. In the Look in box, click "My Computer". (This searches your entire computer - if you know that the file is in a specific area, for example, "My Documents", then change this accordingly.)
4. Click "Search Now". If the Search Results box does not show the file, continue with the following steps to search for all Word Documents.
5. In the Search for files or folders named box, type *.doc. Tip: In computer terminology, the asterisk * is used to select all options. By entering *.doc you're telling the computer to search for all files with the .doc extension.
6. Click "Search Now".

If you still cannot find the file, open the Recycle Bin and follow these steps.

1. Open the Recycle Bin.
2. On the View menu, click Details.
3. Click Arrange Icons and click by Delete Date. This allows you to filter this list according to the date when the files were deleted. If you know that your files were lost yesterday, you can look at this date.
4. When you find the document that you are looking for, right-click on it, and click Restore.

This returns the document to its original location. Open the file and examine its contents.

Search for Word Backup Files.

Many users rely on the Always create backup copy setting (see Tools > Options > Save tab) to automatically create a backup copy of their files.

While the obvious advantage is that it always creates a backup file, the downside is that it makes Word work with difficulty. As it has to continually save backup copies, it will reduce your computer's performance. Quite often, Word will freeze when it backs up a large file.

To find the backup file, follow these steps:

1. Open the folder where you last saved the lost files.
2. Search for files with the .wbk extension. (Word BacKup)

When you find a file that has the name "Backup of" followed by the name of the lost files:

1. In Word, click File > Open.
2. In the File of type box, click All Files *.*, select the file, and then click Open.

If the .wbk file is not located in the original folder, search the computer as follows:

1. In Windows, click Start, point to Search, and then click For Files or Folders.
2. In the Search for files or folders named box, type *.WBK.
3. In the Look in box, point to the arrow, and then click My Computer.
4. Click Search Now.

Search for AutoRecover Files.

Word creates AutoRecover files of the documents that you are working on whenever it crashes. When you re-open Word, it displays these AutoRecover files in the Document Recovery task pane.

If Word finds the AutoRecover file, the Document Recovery task pane opens on the left side of the screen, and the missing document is listed as "document name [Original]" or as "document name [Recovered]".

1. Double-click the file in the Document Recovery pane.
2. Click Save As.
3. Save the document as a .doc file.

Use Task Manager to close Word after a Crash.

When Word crashes, the Winword.exe file may still remain open. You need to close this before you re-open Word as otherwise system conflicts may arise, i.e. you may not be able to open Word, as the system sees that Winword.exe is currently running.

To close Winword.exe using the Task Manager, please follow these steps:

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL. In the Windows Security dialog box, click Task Manager.
2. On the Processes tab, click any instance of Winword.exe, and then click End Process.
3. Close the Windows Task Manager, and then re-start Word.

Search Manually.

You can also manually search for AutoRecover files:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the File Locations tab, double-click AutoRecover files, and write down the path. Click Cancel and Close.
3. Close Word.
4. Open the AutoRecover file location (based on the path you wrote down).
5. Search for files that end with .asd.

Search for Temporary Files.

If you can not find the file by these methods, you can search for temporary files:

1. Click Start, click Search, and then click For Files or Folders.
2. In the Search for files or folders named box, type *.TMP.
3. In the Look in box, point to the arrow, and then click My Computer.
4. If the Search Options are not visible, click Search Options.
5. Click to select the Date check box, click in the last "n" days, and then change "n" to the number of days since you last opened the file.
6. Click Search Now.
7. On the View menu, click Details, point to Arrange Icons, and click by Date.
8. Scroll down searching for files that match the last few dates and times that you edited the document.

Search for "~" Files.

Some temporary file names start with the tilde (~) symbol. To find these files, please follow these steps:

1. In Windows, click Start, click Search, and then click For Files or Folders.
2. In the Search for files or folders named box, type ~*.*.
3. Click Search Now.
4. On the View menu, click Details and then sort by Date.
5. Scroll through the files for documents that match the last date that you edited the document.

If the recovered Word document is still damaged.

Microsoft Word tries to automatically recover a damaged document if it detects a problem with the file. You can also "force" Word to try to recover a document when you open it.

1. On the File menu, click Open.
2. In the File of type list, click All Files *.*.
3. In the Open dialog box, select your document.
4. Point to the arrow on the Open button, and then click Open and Repair.

Or try using some Microsoft Word document fix tool. These products are often able to repair corrupt Word documents using text found in previously saved copies of the file. Our product will have the word fix function. You can send the files to us, and we will help you repair. Please see: File Repair.

To recover Word files from a drive, please follow these steps:

Recover the deleted and overwritten Word documents

If a Word document is deleted, the Data Recovery Wizard will scan the entire disk to find the contents of the deleted document in previously saved copies or backup files.

Recover from deleted partitions and reformatted disks

The Data Recovery Wizard supports all versions of the FAT, NTFS and Ext2/ Ext3 (supported by Professional version) file systems, and can recover Word documents even from the lost, deleted partitions and reformatted disks.

Key Features
Recover Microsoft Word 6.0 / 95 / 97 / 2000 / XP / 2003 / 2007 documents.
Recover password protected documents.
Recover deleted and overwritten documents.
Recover documents from corrupted partitions, and from reformatted disks.
Supports all versions of Windows.

1. Click the "Complete Recovery" button on the main window of Data Recovery Wizard.

2. You can see the list of all logical volumes found on your computer.

3. Choose one of them and press the "Next" button (if you are familiar with file system details, you can change "Option" before pressing the "Next" button).

4. Data Recovery Wizard will read file system on selected volume.

5. This step may take some time depending on the size of disk space. You have to wait until scanning is finished.

6. Then you will see every possible existent partition will be detected and listed by this exhaustive scanning.

7. After this scanning is finished, you are able to select at most 6 volumes to recover data.

8. You can click "Searching files" or "Find file by name" to see search office document and right click to preview the word file.

9. Select the file or folder that you want to recover and press the "NEXT" button.

10. Select a directory and press the "NEXT" button to save the data.

Please see "Complete Recovery" for more details.

Please see How do I recover lost Excel files?

The demo version of Data Recovery Wizard gives you a much fairer idea about chances of data recovery from your hard disk before deciding upon the purchase. You can buy full version to recover data!

Caution: Saving file(s) to the partition or drive from where you are recovering data, for it may result in overwriting of data, and would result in permanent data loss!!!

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