If a saved Word document was deleted, check the Recycle Bin and existing copies before scanning the drive. If it was never saved, use Word’s unsaved-document recovery route instead. Recovering a deleted DOCX and recovering text that never reached storage are different tasks.
Find the saved file or an earlier copy
Open the Windows Recycle Bin and search by filename or .docx/.doc. Check Original Location and deletion date to avoid restoring a similarly named draft. Use Restore for the matching item, then open its original folder. If the item came from an external device or bypassed the bin, it may not be listed. Microsoft documents this route in its Word recovery guidance.
Check the exact OneDrive or SharePoint account if the file was stored there, including its deleted items. Also search email attachments, collaboration downloads and dated backup locations. A colleague’s copy may be complete but older; identify its revision before continuing to edit it.
For a local folder protected by File History, right-click the original folder and examine Restore previous versions. Open an available historical folder and copy the required document to a separate recovery location. This only helps when that folder was backed up before deletion. See Microsoft’s File History procedure.
When a disk scan is appropriate
Reduce use of the storage that held the file. Avoid installing recovery software or saving downloads onto that same device. If it is the Windows system disk, ordinary computer activity can create additional writes; for important files, consider preserving the disk before continuing.
On a readable disk, use XRecovery to scan the original disk or partition. Browse the former folder, search the name and inspect document-type results. Do not reject all generic names: a surviving document may have lost its original directory record. Preview supported candidates and export selected files to another physical device.
A document found in a signature result can still be incomplete. DOCX is a structured package, so a promising beginning or a visible paragraph does not establish that all its internal parts survived. Keep different candidates separate and compare them in Word.
Check the document you actually needed
Open the exported copy in Word, keeping macros and external content disabled unless expected and trusted. Check the first and last paragraphs, headings, tables, embedded images and any tracked changes or comments relevant to the task. Compare the final edit against another known copy or a printed/exported version when available. Pagination can vary with fonts and printer settings, so page count alone is a weak completeness test.
If Word reports corruption, retain the unchanged recovered file. A complete alternate copy is preferable; Word’s repair route or XRecovery’s supported Word-file repair can then be attempted on a copy. Repair cannot replace text whose underlying bytes have been overwritten. Save useful partial output with its limitations recorded, and retain the original storage until the recovery is verified.
For the next step, see Document Recovery: Deleted, Unsaved, Overwritten or Damaged?.