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Opened backed up word files from old computer and they are all jumbled weirdness. Any chance of getting them back?

6 replies

fuzzpig · 19/08/2013 22:06

I am gutted. Old poems I'd written in my teens on my dad's computer using whatever version of Word was around at the time, I'd saved them via an external hard disk thing and not looked at them for ages. Just tried opening them on my laptop (office 2010) and they opened in WordPad but they are all complete gobbledygook like this

ÐÏࡱá

etc.

Except one poem which I wrote much later, and that does have the actual poem but still surrounded by the above.

Any chance at all of salvaging this? I am so sad. Those poems were the only good thing to come out of a very bad time (hence me not looking at them for ages, and I don't think I have the notebook I wrote them in either) :(

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TheFallenNinja · 19/08/2013 22:09

If you have word installed, right click on the file you want to open and look for Open With, from there you should be able to select Word.

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fuzzpig · 19/08/2013 22:31

we have word 2010, but when I try the 'open with' thing it only allows wordpad, notepad (tried that but same issue), adobe reader. tried browsing to choose word, but can't find it in program files despite using it every day Confused
the even weirder thing is, when I am on the windows explorer type thing, and just click (not double click) the title of a poem, at the bottom of the screen under 'title' it actually has the first line of each poem! but when I open it, you can't see it.

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fuzzpig · 19/08/2013 22:37

ok panic over... sort of...

I didn't manage to find Word (Confused) so clicked something called file converter, but nothing happened. Then when I was trying to show DH, I put the default back to WordPad to show him what the problem was.

And of course now the poems are there. Still among a load of gobbledegook, but there nonetheless. Don't I look a fool. Hmm

I really don't understand why it worked the second time!

thanks though!

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WMittens · 19/08/2013 22:37

Try searching for 'Winword.exe'. According to the MS site, the default folder is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

What file format are they saved in? .txt .rtf .doc .wpd .lwp

It does sound like they're in a format Wordpad doesn't recognise; Word should deal with them fine.

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fuzzpig · 19/08/2013 23:20

Thanks. I got the text from 26 of the 28 poems - I copied them into a new word document and might email them to myself as well.

the last two for some reason haven't worked. I assume they were in a different font or something. I'll try that winword.exe

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fuzzpig · 20/08/2013 00:03

I still couldn't find word on the browse function Confused

I opened word though and opened them that way. The two I still need though, didn't work - one is password protected (and ironically is the one I was specifically wanting to read!) the other is corrupted. Ah well.

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