How to Fix Missing File Headers Error on Windows 11/10

I encounter a virus attack recently, and I find some of my files cannot open successfully because of the missing file headers error. How to open or repair these files on Windows?

Many electronic discovery applications will use the file header as a means to verify the file types. File headers allow users to locate the contents of deleted files, user activity logs, registry entries, and other relevant artifacts. However, some users encounter the issue of missing file headers on their Windows computers. Therefore, some useful solutions are available here to help solve this issue.

1. Repair corrupted files with professional file repair software. This is an efficient way to resolve file header missing problems. Usually, a file header disappearing error arises due to file corruption. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can repair corrupted Office files and PDF documents with different errors.

2. Restore the file header manually. If you want to resolve the file missing header problem without software, then perform the following steps (take a Word document as an example):

Step 1. Open the Microsoft Word file and open any document or you can also create a new one by clicking on the File menu > New option.

Step 2. Make sure your Word file is in editable mode. If your Word file is in non-editable mode, then there is a yellow toolbar available that is asking you to edit the document.

Step 3. You can move your mouse just above the top of the Word page.

Step 4. After that, you will see that your mouse pointer has been changed to 2 arrows pointing which are away from each other.

Step 5. Once your mouse has the double arrows then double click on the file and your missing headers will re-appear on the top of the Word document.