My 18 page file is now #######s

[mhoemann]

I was working on a project and I had a fairly sizable document. I'd edited it entirely in Writer, but saved it as a .doc file. As I was writing it my (Brand new ) laptop threw a blue screen of death and crashed out. When I restarted Writer, it popped into the document recovery and showed the file that I was working on when the computer crashed. I exited from it without thinking. Then, when I opened the file, it was nothing but roughly 17 pages of "################" signs. I tried opening it elsewhere but got the same type of result, but with different characters. I can't express how much I would love to get my writing back. If there is ANY suggestion anybody could point me towards I would be forever grateful!

[Hagar Delest]

See in your backup folder (see in Tools>Options>OOo>Paths) if there is a backup file.
Else, nothing to be done I fear. You should keep working in native .odt and then export as .doc when needed. At least if a .odt is damaged, you can retrieve most of its content. With a binary format, that's another story.

Good luck.