Need computer help fast

I'm not the most computer literate guy in the world so if anyone can help solve this problem before 10am that'd be awesome. My girlfriend was writing a paper for one of her 4th year classes, completely finished, went to save it to her memory stick. **** hit the fan.

Message came up saying there was an error saving it, and Word closed, and the file was completely gone from the stick. The computer saved it as a rescued document on a wordpad. Except it looks like this: 㼀?㼿㼿㼿?࠿ 㼀 䄀˜LÎÛ㼀?㼿㼿㼿㼿? 㼀 䌀ÎÛÀ©˜L. Is there a way to translate this jibberish back to english or is she hooped and trying to rewrite by memory?

Her deadline is tomorrow so if you have anything that'll help that'd be great.

 

Hi FlipAvD Welcome to CHF.
A Techy should be along shortly, to help you with your Problem.

 

Hooped im afraid which is why its always good to save partway through a long task.
im not too familiar with the way that word saves files, but as it shut down before being saved I would say its gone

 

Try right clicking over the Wordpad file and selecting 'Open With' and select Microsoft Word.

 

I'm on 'shaky ground' here as I'm far from a computer expert in any aspect ... but think our hatsoff is onto something here.

It's been a long time so I'm working strictly on memory here, but when it happened to me, several of my Windows Word files opened similar to that ... and while one of our Experts will be able to explain this part properly, I'm sure... the problem came from somehow the part of the program that has to do with showing symbols that don't work on printers?? being enabled. (I'm sorry I can't be more clear on that but I no longer use Microsoft Word so can't rummage around and find the section).

If I remember correctly, changing the format with which they open worked with some - and with a really important, huge one, I had to resort to one of the free trials 'Lost data retrieval' programs. (It worked!! - so although I never did buy the program, I sent them a 'thank you' note )

Again, I'm so so so far from qualified to help here ...but I do hope your girlfriend is able to rescue her work, FlipAvD !!

 

Its not Chinese......or any other language, no amount of messing about with language settings will help.

Try opening a Word document in the old style Wordpad i.e not Win 7 style, and you'll get the same effect.

Back to the original post - what exactly happened here

Normally if you reopen Word it will Autorecover - did that not happen?

Also, where did you find the file you refer to?