Some of the problems that bring headaches to Windows users are recurring errors in the Microsoft products, especially in the Office Suite. It is very frustrating that after working all day in a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet or a PowerPoint presentation, a simple error in the program causes important data lost.

Fortunately, there are different solutions to recover lost files in any of the Office products, which we list below:

NOTE: Before you try any of the following tools and solutions, we recommend manually search for the file (from the search panel of Windows Explorer). Many times, despite suffering a non wanted shutdown, the original document remains on the computer.

1- OfficeFIX + OutlookFIX

This is a great tools suite designed especially to encrypt and recover damaged files either concerned of doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, or Outlook messages, the email client of Office.

We strongly recommend downloading Office FIX before proceeding with any of the next solutions on the list.

2- Recover files from the backup of Microsoft

If the above application wasn’t useful, it is possible that the main document is gone. But there may be a backup document available. For this to happen, we must have previously enabled the option “Always create backup” from the program options.

If the feature Always create backup is enabled, follow these steps to find the backup of lost documents.

1- Locate the folder where you last saved the missing document.
2- Look for files with the extension WBK.
3- If there are no files that have the WBK extension in the original folder, follow these steps to search in the computer for all files that have the WBK extension:
a) Click Start and then click Search.
b) In the lower left panel Desktop Search for Windows, click on Click here to use Search Wizard.
c) In the Search Wizard panel, click All files and folders.
d) Copy and paste (or type) the following text: *.wbk
e) in the box Search in, click My Computer, and then click Search.

3- Forcing open AutoRecover files

If you’ve tried to open Word (or any similar application) and it has not given us the ability to access the AutoRecover file automatically, we can look for it ourselves.

With the same search procedure as mentioned above, finds all files containing the ASD extension.

Once identified the file and the folder where it is stored, run the program> open> and look for the folder and the file needed. If the file is damaged and it cannot be read by the program, you will have the option to open or “open and repair“. Choose the latter option and the file can be used normally.

Finally, we recommend also reading the article “5 ways to fix corrupted Excel files“

We hope this article has been helpful. Please do not forget to comment or share it with those who think they need it.

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2 Comments to “How to recover lost or damaged files in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook”

• 
      08/10/2012

  Edwin Foter says:

  My hard drive crashed in the middle of work and i couldnt access any of my files. I had very important power point presentation saved on my hard drive which I need present in next morning to a group of investors. then i found this informative article on the Internet and solved all relative problems. i am very thankful to a great information share.

  Reply
• 
      20/09/2012

  sid manny says:

  Last time I was able to repair broken word file by using a Repair Word tool. It worked with the good results. More detailed information about corrupt word file repair is available on the below mentioned official website.

  http://www.repair-word.com/repair-broken-word-file.html

  Reply