Why Word Files Become 0 Bytes? 3 Efficient Methods to Recover the Corrupted Word Documents
Last Updated on November 20, 2022 by Yulia Ilina
After a complete restart or crashing, you might find some Word files become 0 bytes, which means the Word files is empty or damaged. What should you do to recover 0 bytes Word document? Should you choose a data recovery to get back the files or simply choose Office Word to retrieve them back? Here are the best answers you should know.
Part 1: Here are the Reasons for 0 Byte Word Documents
There are different reasons why your Word or Excel files suddenly become 0 bytes. It does not mean the files are corrupted or damaged completed. There might be a recovery file saved automatically. Just search for the files with the same file name before recovering the 0 bytes Word document.
1. Improper Shutdown
2. Bad Sectors
3. Malicious Software
4. Corrupted Index Table
5. File Uploading, Downloading, and Transferring
Part 2: The Easy Method to Retrieve 0 Byte Word Document
If you need to have a high success rate to retrieve the 0-byte Word or Excel files, cannot find the original files, or difficult to get back the files with other methods, Data Recovery is always the initial choice to restore the Office file for different scenarios. Just enter the file name or the path, and you can find the recovered files easily. Moreover, you can retrieve corrupted Word files with both Quick Scan and Deep Scan.
1. Retrieve corrupted or unsaved Word files in DOC or DOCX easily.
2. Provide 2 different scanning modes to retrieve the 0-byte Word files.
3. Get back the files from Recycle bin, hard drives, partition, and more.
4. Group and search recovered files according to the specific data type.
Step 1: Download and install Data Recovery to your computer, you can run the software to retrieve the corrupted Word files. If you need to get back the files from a USB stick, you have to connect the USB stick to your computer beforehand.
Step 2: Choose the Document option only to recover 0 byte Word document only. Of course, you can tick the Check all file types option to get the desired files. After that, select the Windows (C:) drive, other hard disk drives, or even the removable drives before clicking the Scan button.
Step 3: You can find the recovered files with the Quick Scan mode directly. If it cannot provide the original files of the 0-byte word document, you can click the Deep Scan mode to make sure you can get the corrupted files. It takes a long time to scan the files with the mode.
Step 4: Select the DOCX menu or the DOC menu to check the retrieved files. The Word files with black titles are still available on your computer. The titles in yellow are no longer available on your computer. Move the cursor to a word file, where you can find the path, size, and other information.
Step 5: Find the original file with similar file size or even recovers all Word files. After that, you can check the Word file. Simply click the Recover button to retrieve 0 byte Word document. You can check the Word files one by one to get the one you want.
Part 3: How to Restore the Zero Byte Files Using CMD
CHKDSK command is another efficient and free method to retrieve the 0-byte Word document on your Windows. It enables you to resolve 0-byte Word files caused by some unknown reasons. It is a method to get back the deleted or corrupted files from your hard drive only.
Step 1: Press the Win and R keys to start the Run dialog box. Moreover, you can also enter the Command Prompt in the search column and choose the app to get back the files.
Step 2: Just type cmd in the Run dialog box before pressing the Enter key to access the Command Prompt. At the Command Prompt, type CHKDSK /F C: where C is the name partition of the hard drive that holds the 0-byte file.
Step 3: Once you press the Enter key, it will resolve the 0-byte file errors in storage devices or partitions of a hard drive. After that, you can find the 0-byte Word document has been restored.
Part 4: How to Change File Extension to Recover 0 Byte Word Files
By changing the file extension, you can easily recover 0-byte Word files. It is a simple yet effective way to get back the files from external devices. But it will not always work, you have to save the recovered Word file in a separate hard drive partition.
Step 1: Search the location of the hard drive partition where your Word files have already turned into 0 bytes. After that, you can right-click the drive and choose the Properties option.
Step 2: Go to the Tools tab and click the Check option to fix the 0-byte Word files. Tick the Automatically fix file system errors option before clicking the Start button to start the process.
Step 3: Click the Close option once the scanning is done. You can access the drive for the 0-byte Word document and type FOUND.000 at the address field and then click the Enter option.
Step 4: Save the Word file, alter the name and its extension to recover 0-byte Word files. Open and check your Word file to find whether the Word content is available now.
Conclusion
If you find the corrupted Word document, here are the reasons as well as the best methods to get them back. Whether you want to retrieve the 0-byte Word files on your computer or external devices, you can find the workable methods from the article. To restore the files at a high success rate, Data Recovery is always the initial choice.