Corrupt .docx file

**kleefarr** · January 23rd, 2012, 12:53 PM

Hi guys,

Have a recovered Office 2010 Word .docx (~$natio) which when opened with Word 2010 gives me 'cannot be opened because there are problems with the contents'.

I tried the hotmail windows live fix... Towards the bottom.. http://problemswiththecontent.blogspot.com/

and got this

'This document cannot be opened for editing'.

and when trying to open in online word..

Word Web App cannot open this document for viewing because of an unexpected error. To view this document, open it in Microsoft Word.

Error Id: 452df1e5-390f-4a11-99ee-7a1e83ab526c, 20120123174050

It's a 2500 word doc. (not mine).
Any other free options that I can try?

**Niclo Iste** · January 23rd, 2012, 01:20 PM

Have you tried from word doing, File, Open, selecting the file, then clicking the dropdown for open and select open & repair? If that didn't work the only other thought I could have is that either they saved as a .doc and manually typed x on the end OR you may want to try using another program like libre office to open the document for repair.

**kleefarr** · January 23rd, 2012, 01:39 PM

Yep, tried open & repair also tried renaming it to doc and using libre writer off a Ubuntu Live CD.

**Niclo Iste** · January 23rd, 2012, 01:54 PM

where is the original? If it's in an e-mail I can assume that it's corrupted in the sending. Seen that several times from when I worked at the law firm.

**kleefarr** · January 23rd, 2012, 03:52 PM

No, not in an email. Was on the laptop. The orginal version opens but is an empty 12kb file. The corrupt version was a copy, I presume a back up, that is 126kb. I know that it's probably not the complete document, but would go some way to saving the owner the tedious task of having to type out the whole 25k words again.

**NooNoo** · January 24th, 2012, 02:00 PM

Have you tried this? It might get you the text back...

**kleefarr** · January 25th, 2012, 06:28 AM

Hi Noo,

Thanks for that. I tried it and it recover about 3 lines of text.

They have collected the laptop now and are resigned to having to redo the document. I suggested that they make sure a copy is saved on USB stick before closing and turning off laptop.
A lesson has been learnt I think.

Thanks everyone for your help.

**NooNoo** · January 25th, 2012, 01:54 PM

Well they might be 3 very important lines... sorry it didn't work as well for you. It would point to a corrupt template, so you should take them through destroying that existing template they are using (and if it's normal.dotx make sure you get all the copies) and start a new one.

If it was a template based on normal.dotx, again search and destroy reboot and office will create a new one but only if you found all the copies!

this kb article covers most versions of office. You don't want them retyping it and finding they have exactly the same problem.

The other problem might be a bad block on the hard drive - did you test the hard drive?

**kleefarr** · January 25th, 2012, 02:35 PM

Thanks Noo. I'll go through that with them.

**Niclo Iste** · January 30th, 2012, 12:41 PM

I never knew of those steps and I just now had to try them out for a user. Thanks Noo! BTW thanks for the return with a vengeance, I was starting to wonder if you fell off the edge of the earth.

**Guts3d** · January 30th, 2012, 02:58 PM

We all missed ya!

**NooNoo** · January 31st, 2012, 03:38 AM

Glad to be back.

**slgrieb** · February 9th, 2012, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

Glad to be back.

Glad to have you back, and If you ever need an escort for a visit to the States, I'm up for the role. Multiple euphemisms here.

**NooNoo** · February 10th, 2012, 04:08 AM

I think my reaction should be to waggle my eyebrows in a friendly but non commital manner...

**Andrewpaul** · February 22nd, 2012, 03:41 AM

Hi,
To solve this problem please follow the step,
1. Exit all Office programs.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate the following registry subkey, as appropriate for the version of Word that you are running:
o Word 2012:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\W ord\Data
4. Click Data, and then click Export on the File menu.
5. Name the file Wddata.reg, and then save the file to the desktop.
6. Click Delete on the Edit menu, and then click Yes.
7. Exit Registry Editor.
then you open word and i hope it is working.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541