Open Office File (.odt) Corruption

My wife keeps her "Book List" in an Open Office file (xxx.odt) that she stores on a removable memory stick.
A week ago she opened her current book list file and made an entry. No problem, so she thought.
Yesterday she tried to open that file, as she has always done, and all she got was what appeared to be garbage.
She asked me to look at and it appeared to me to be the "header" information and nothing else.
Since the data is in ASCII format, I tried to open the file using Notepad. Got the same "header" garbage and nothing else.
All her other xxx.odt files open without a problem, I concluded that the "problem" was this specific file and that the header information had become corrupt.
I assume that the "data content" is still on the memory stick but I have no way that I can retrieve it.
Any suggestions on how I can get her "Book List" data off the memory stick?
Thanks for any help.

 

Haven't had any experience myself of such problems but I do trust Easeus. Have a read HERE. Good luck with it.

 

I downloaded and installed Easeus. Got to the point where I clicked on Recover. Easeus wanted me to pay $69.95 to perform the recovery. That's too much to find out if the program could recover the "lost" data.

 

Sorry about that, I did not intend recommending a chargeable solution.

 

I tried those methods, neither worked. I also D/L and installed the free PC Inspector File Recovery program that is listed on this site. It was old (last Windows version was XP) but one of my four PCs has XP so I ran it. It ran correctly but it didn't recover that file.
So, I took it to the local PC repair shop. The owner copied the stick and said he would work on it when he had the time and let me know. That was Tuesday. Yesterday and today were weather disasters. Ice storms, power outage and sub-zero temps (mountains of western NC).
We'll see. If he recovers anything I think I'll put it on a small remote hard drive that should be more reliable. I've never lost a file on any of the 12 odd remotes I've used over the years.
Thanks for your suggestions.

 

I approach the "storage of files' the same way I secure my home. Standard bolt locks on the doors and have nothing in the house that I can't afford to lose.
My wife prints her "Book List" so she has a paper copy. Would like to get that file content back as a matter of convenience. In any case that list is just a handy way to check to see if she has read a certain book. Reads a lot and can't remember all the titles.
All my remote hard drives are Western Digital. To me a small hard drive is 250 GB. It's been a while, so I don't know if that size is even available anymore. Of the 7 remotes I currently have on my four PCs, only one is 1 TB. I don't trust anything larger.
Thanks for your comments and interest in my problem.
Major Geeks is and has always been my GoTo with a PC problem.

 

The other thing would be, try a hex editor like HxD (link to MG) look at the file, if not make an image of the drive and look at it in the hex editor. I say make an image because you don't want to mess anything up more than it is. Many recovery programs try to recover data based on file types, so they know what a jpeg, gif or doc file should look like. I don't know how many would invest time to implement recovery of an open source format.

 

Thanks, but I already tried my hex editor. No joy.