I am a story writer. From last two weeks I had been writing a story on my MS Word. I completed my story on 23 pages. I saved all the pages inside a folder. Then I turned off my laptop. When the time comes to show them I can't open them. I can open the folder inside which my files are saved but whenever I click on a particular .doc file I get this: "the doc file is corrupt." Now I'm just clueless that how to open my .doc files when this error indicates corruption! Alas!

Generally I use MS Office 2007 in my home PC but in laptop I use MS Office 2003. Any idea or suggestion to get my .doc files back?

It can be said my bad luck that I haven't backed up my those .doc files. Usually I backup regularly but this time not.
Anything more?

Did you work on your files using a RAM stick or other mobile media? That is a good way to corrupt files in any version of Word.
Document Corruption

Hey thanks for this, but it is useless for me as I have tried it. In fact it was the very first thing what I looked. Need something more!

Hey, I have heard about some file recovery software programs. Shall I try them? Do you guys know any free ones?

Are you serious? I mean you are asking me for those .doc files in which my story is written. Oh come on! I'm not gonna send you anything publicly or privately. Is there any way which can help me repair these .doc files?

Polly.

You have a problem. You have a broken Word document. You did not make backups. You have asked for help. You are biting the hands of those trying to help you. You are asking people to overhaul a car engine blind long distance and angry because they would like to see the engine.

You are in panic mode. It is understandable and frustrating. Sit back, take a few deep breaths. You may need to rewrite. No one has died. All of your limbs are still attached.

I asked you a question a while back that you did not answer. It was, in part, diagnostic. Did you, at any time, edit these documents or work with them when they were on mobile media like a CD-RW or a memory stick? You were working on them on your laptop and I assume they were on your hard drive while you were doing anything with them, but I learned a long while ago to not make such assumptions.

Oh! So sorry for my short temper. I'm not like this? It really took a long time and a great mind strength to complete my story. So I was little bit frustrated. Sorry. Anyways I created those .doc files in my laptop (as I already mentioned that .doc files are not opening.) I saved them normally as I save other documents (on my D: Drive). And again sorry as you can understand my condition.

For future reference, not this problem, see Automatically backup Word documents which provides a utility (free) to automatically back up Word documents in a separate location. This is something Word does not have on its own.

If you were not working on them on removable media, you must have copies (even if not completely up-to-date) on your other computer.

No, there is not any single copy of those documents on my other computer. What is the relation between my laptop and my home PC? I use laptop for my office use and home PC at home. I didn't get you, what did you mean?

Sorry, I assumed, mistakenly, that you were using both computers to work on your files. If you were, you would likely have older copies on the other computer.

Having lost major work of my own in the past due to not having backups, I feel your pain and frustration. I hope the file recovery tools mentioned do help you. I have learned from my pain to keep copies of valuable work in electronic and paper form in different locations.

Thanks for all your support and assistance. I got something best solution for me.

Thanks for this post. I got something for me there. MS Word Doc File Repair. Nice tool. I just downloaded its demo. Let's see what I'll get from it!
But thanks.