Help! All my documents are gone.

[Guest]

I am using Win XP and Office 2000. I moved the entire D: to E: and format my
D:. Then, I moved everything back to D: again. I've found that the files in
many folders have been corrupted, including the Word Docs. I can still open
the Word docs but all the contents become messed up. It looks like using MS
Word to open an Excel document, you know, all the funny characters and all
formats gone.

When I try to open the files using Word XP, it will ask me to choose a
language convertor before the files open. So, it looks like some language
support missing, but I suspect that the file have been corrupted when I moved
the files around. I also have problems opening other files like pdf and jpg
that are in the same folders as the corrupted Word docs.

What should I do? I don't want to lose everything I have done in the PAST
DECADE! My friend has tried to download different language support
convertors but of course it does work, as I don't think that's the problem.
I also try to use some Word Recovery application, but it fails too.

Please help! Or at least point me to some directions!

 

[JoAnn Paules]

When you "moved everything", you don't mean the programs too, do you?

--

JoAnn Paules
Microsoft MVP - Publisher

How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Dan Freeman]

I'm no Word expert, and that's OK because this has nothing to do with Word,
but why on earth would you move everything to a different drive, format the
origin, and then move everything back?

It makes no sense. There's no functional reason to do that.

You also forgot to describe the steps you used to make sure the copy to
another drive was successful and that you didn't simply end up creating
shortcuts to the original.

If you've obliterated years of work, well, YOU have done that. Don't be
looking for someone else to blame. It's all on you, dude. Restore from the
backup you've maintained with great care.

What the heck do you have going on there that you think this was a proper
course of action?

Dan