Page 1 of Any ideas - all word docs have died a horrible death!

My wife`s computer`s just done a wobble - all her word docs have been corrupted, throughout the hard disc - obviously happened this afternoon as the time/date stamp on each has altered. When you open them it looks like what you get when you can`t recover a doc - loads of little squares and formatting codes, etc, but can`t find any body text at all to salvage. I initially suspected a virus, but can`t find anything on there.
Any other ideas, particularly on the recovery front? I have tried downloading some office recovery util, but no joy.

Her backup consists of printed versions, so it looks like I`ll be doing a lot of typing for her over the next few days.....

well if the time/date stamp has been altered I would still suspect a virus. Is your software upto date?

http://housecall.antivirus.com/

Try the above link. It will scan your PC on line for any virus

Yes, it does seem sensible that it`s virus related, but I made sure the McAfee virus definitions were up to date and ran a full system scan - all clean. Weird. Ah well, maybe she`ll take backup seriously now.

I could be way off here but is it possible that your wife has accidentally turned on Hidden Text or Field Codes or View All under the Tools -> Options -> View Menu?

That sounds very much like the FAT table has become corrupted, her docs could still be there somewhere but you will need a utility such as Lost+Found to find them. These basically ignore the FAT table completely (any XP/NT or 2K users out there should be ashamed of themselves if they aren`t using NTFS yet) and search the hard drive for the directory and file entries instead.

Ooooh, thanks RJS, I`ll have a look at that - having prodded a bit more, JPG, TXT, HTM and LOG files are in the same boat. I`ll have another probe. If you`re right, you may get a wet sloppy kiss in your inbox.

R

Theres a demo here:
http://www.sofsol.co.nz/p0001165.htm

Which apparently shows you what can be recovered before you fork out your hard earned cash.

Other similar product demos worth trying:
http://www.dtidata.com/products_bundle_ftree.asp

Or this one may be worth a shot first:
http://www.hdrdatasoftware.com/download.html

just back up what yout can and reinstall the operating system!!!..... says he as if he kmows what he`s talking about :-)

Thanks for the links, Rob - I`ll try a couple of them. Spent 3 hours last night with the demo of Lost & Found (trying to get it onto 2 *$@##!* floppies that didn`t have errors on them), only to find that it`s discontinued so I wouldn`t be able to use the full product anyway! And I usually like Powerquest so much!