HELP - anyone good with IT stuff?

[sarahinphuket]

I really hope that someone can help me out!
I've just tried to open the uni assignment that I am working on (it was due last Fri but cos of lots of stressful things happening I haven't quite finished it). I wanted to finish it tonight.
Anyway, I just tried to open it and although MS Word opens the file and I can see the document, it immediately tells me that it has encountered a problem and has to close. I have managed to print out the document and I am devastated because out of the 2000 odd words I had written, I can only get about 500 to print out.
It seems that the document is damaged od corrupted or something. The first three pages will print out - although not perfectly...I get funny symbols in the middle of sentences and some of the paragraphs stop half way through.
After that I just get funny symbols at the top of each page.

Gutted. Have just had a good cry. This is a Masters essay and I realy can't face having to start it all again. It was bad enough that it was late..

Is there anything I can do to try and save my file or repair it somehow? Whilst I am good with MSWord I have no idea what to do when something like this happens,

PLEASE can someone tell me that my assignment will still be there somewhere all in one piece and that one of the IT staff at my work will be able to find it for me tomorrow?

Or is it all hopeless?

bump. Wish I could help. Does your uni have an IT person you coudl call?

was it saved on your unis IT system? if so, you can most probably ask for a recovery request off their main system-but it could take 24hrs for them to sort it out for you. gd luck x

Try this:

1. Open Word directly (i.e. not by double-clicking on your file)

1. From the menu, choose File -> Open

1. In the file browser, navigate to and highlight the assignment file. DO NOT CLICK ON 'OPEN'

1. On the right-hand side of the 'Open' button you'll see a little down-arrow. Click carefully on that and you'll get a little pull-down menu. Select 'Open and Repair' from that.

This may or may not help, but it's a good place to start.