Is there any legitimate way to recover an overwritten Microsoft Word file?

I have seen a lot of how to guides the Internet. I have tried a few but they did not work. And then I have read other things that say you cannot do this. Would it be possible to use any type of data recovery software?

Also I'm not entirely sure it was overwritten. I had about 17 pages to the document that I was working on earlier today I opened it just now and I only have one page. I don't remember doing anything that would have caused me to lose all of the other pages.



I have searched through my computer for an alternate version of the document and I found nothing.
Can anyone think of anything else that may have happened and how I can fix it?

Thanks a lot I really need to get a hold of this document. I know I should have backed it up somewhere else, but I didn't or I wouldn't be asking this question.

 

restore will not work.

 

The restore was your best hope.

Unless you are creating a back up every time you save, you probably lost the old copy. To save space, the file will over write. No trace of the old file will be there. You are much better off trying to recover a doc you deleted, then you have a chance. You can play with the temp files, they usually start with a '~' and are where your docs are. MAYBE you will find what you are looking for, by sheer dumb luck.

 

which version of ms word

 

Versions have nothing to do with whether you back up your documents. Version 1.0 had that ability but YOU had to set it up. Since you are asking the question what version, we can assume you did not.

Your only hope is that you edited the document a while back and did not exit Word properly. Then if you didn't clean it up it still might be there.

I always back up documents I can not afford to lose before I edit them. Every now and then that pays off. Maybe you will learn your lesson.