.doc doesn’t open anymore

[massamaahinen]

Hello from Finland. And YES, I know now, that it was wrong way to save my document as .doc but I did. It has many images and is about 15M. Now it doesn’t open anymore but stays gray and Libreoffice is not responsing. This is of course very important doc which I have been writing for over 200 hours, so I would be really happy if somebody has any idea how to proceed.

[UnklDonald418]

I assume you wouldn't be asking this question if you did regular backups.
The WordPad utility that comes withWindows XP can open ,doc files.
If that fails try opening it on a different computer.
If that fails then it is probably corrupt.
You could search online or on Microsoft.com see if there is some way to recover a corrupt .doc file.

[massamaahinen]

I have done continuous backups to my RAID HDD but I believe that both
are corrupted as this must have happened when saving the document.
It's possible that I have done something at the same time the Libreoffice
made automatic saving. So I am using Libreoffice.

If I try to open it with WordPad, it is total mess.

[Zizi64]

It's possible that I have done something at the same time the Libreoffice
made automatic saving. So I am using Libreoffice.

For the future working:
The automatic saving will save one file only. If it goes wrong, then the software will save the wrong state. You need create backup copies with different (timestamped) file name.
Use the timeStampBackup extension.
https://extensions.libreoffice.org/exte ... amp-backup

[RoryOF]

I have done continuous backups to my RAID HDD but I believe that both
are corrupted as this must have happened when saving the document.

It is good practice to make regular timed/dated backups to at least one other device or computer; a number of these should be preserved - perhaps the last five or six (i.e., don't clear them all out regularly), allowing the recent development of the document to be traced. It is one thing to have to redo a day's or a week's work in the event of a disk failure or file corruption - those changes should be reasonably fresh in one's mind; it is much more difficult to redo an entire document of several hundred hours editing.

Use the timed/dated backup to which Zizi64 has pointed you. Note that this does not automatically replace the usual Save button; you must invoke it by pressing its button which will be added to the toolbar.

[John_Ha]

.doc files are ZIP files so unzip it (easiest by renaming a copy of the file fred.doc to fred.zip and double-clicking it). It should open and you should see something like this. The important file is WordDocument - it contains all the text.

.doc file unzipped

If it does not open you could try a ZIP repair utility to try to repair the file - make sure you work on the copy!

Try opening the file with a Hex editor like HxD. You should see the text - it looks like this.

test.doc opened in HxD

See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions on how to

a) use Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file (is there something similar on MacOS and Linux?);

b) recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery;

c) find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;

d) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. This will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

I have sent you an email with my ID - if you send me the file I will look at it for you.

[massamaahinen]

I tried renaming it to .zip yesterday as soon as it went bad but it doesn't open.

"The compressed (zipped) folder is invalid or corrupted."
"End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a Zip file, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part Zip file."

I also opened it in editor and yes, it was like your screenshot, Have to try that way.

[John_Ha]

"End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a Zip file, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part Zip file."

With luck the file WordDocument will still be available.

See https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=94187&hilit=+hxd#p448503 for how to get rid of the spaces.

[John_Ha]

massamaahinen sent me the 16MB file.

"End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not a Zip file, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part Zip file."

The file does not have a PK marker at the front and is therefore not a well constructed ZIP file. However it does have some characteristics of a ZIPped .doc file including some metadata saying it is a .doc file. I was able to recover about eleven pages of text from two different parts of the file, both fairly close to the start of the file, which may, or may not, be from the lost document. The file looks like a binary memory dump. I asked PKZIP for Windows to repair it and it could find nothing in it - the repaired file was 0 bytes long.

I responded

I am sorry but the ZIP file is very badly corrupted and I have only been able to find 11 pages of text which may not be from the document. They were in two separate parts of the file.

Be sure to visit [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files for detailed instructions on how to

a) use Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file (is there something similar on MacOS and Linux?);

b) recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery;

c) find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;

d) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. This will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

The tutorial was written for .odt files. a), b) and c) should work for your .doc file. d) will not work for you because .doc files are designed by Microsoft to be placed in memory when they are opened and and no temporary file is created. .odt and .docx files create a temporary file when opened and this temporary file can often be recovered.

If you have a SSD all deleted files get cleansed automatically so you will not be able to find them.