XML file damaged

jumpstylerz

Hey there icrontic,
I had an important document that I stupidly forgot to back up (it was for my It course) and the recovery tool I am using says the XML file is damaged. From what I can gather it is not recoverable but I wanted to double check with you guys first. I just don't want to have to do it again 'cause I spent abut 4 hours on this 1 task.

Thanks
--JumpstylerZ

PirateNinja

"XML file is damaged" is a very open ended error, I think we need more info to help you out.

Is the file you are trying to recover a XML file?

What recovery tool are you using?

Can you post the file here? (understandable if you can't)

jumpstylerz

It's a .docx file and it's some random one my mate used to recover his file that was corrupted another time so yeah. I also tried word's recovery tool. I would also prefer to not post the unless it's a last resort for someone to fix it

PirateNinja

Try File-> Open and Repair
If that fails..

Try right clicking the file in Windows Explorer. If your Office integrated in to your shell you might have a "Save As" option .. do that and save it as Word 2003.

If that fails or is not an option, I think you can rename the docx extension to zip, open up the contents, dabble with the xml and try to fix it, recompile it as a zip again, rename it to docx, and try it in Word.

Could always try something like this too:
http://www.docxrepair.com/

jumpstylerz

Yeah that docxrepair is the one I have, and I have no clue on how to do anything related to an XML file at all although I opened it up in adobe dream weaver and this was all that was present

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

It's seams to me that the text data is completely missing although I don't know how word files work so yeah

jumpstylerz

Holy crap never mind. Changing it to a 2003 document worked perfectly! I'll remember this for next time! Thanks heaps, now to reformat it and save it in about 5 different locations haha

PirateNinja

Ok so you have docx repair and that didn't help you, did you try the other methods I mentioned?

Try File-> Open and Repair
If that fails..

Try right clicking the file in Windows Explorer. If your Office integrated in to your shell you might have a "Save As" option .. do that and save it as Word 2003.

Also, how big is the .docx file in Kb?

If you rename the .docx file to .zip, and open it, do you see a folder that says "word"?
If so, go inside and open document.xml. That is where your actual text is held assuming you are using Word 2010. I don't know about 2007, but I am sure it is similar.

jumpstylerz

I said that I had saved it as word '03 and it fixed it, but there was no "Word" folder in it at all, I run 2007 word but it is fixed now anyway. I think the problem was I was doing the work on a computer that was running 2010 in 2003 compatibility mode and because I had the formatting like titles and stuff for my contents page it stuffed up when saving