Help restoring a simple text file become undecipherable

I was working in a simple text file (that is, a Notepad .txt file), say, 10 k in size. I made a save previously, say when the file was only 9 k in size. I did not saved since, then a computer crash made the whole file undecipherable.

The whole file shows full of [NUL] entries.

1. I tried CHKDSK. It did not find any errors.

2. I tried this: https://superuser.com/questions/223677/recovering-a-corrupted-txt-file

2nd option, with Recuva. It did not do the trick this time. What other possible solutions are out there?

Sure, I can't get back my 10 k of information, since I didn't save the last 1 k at all, but I hope there is a way to somehow get back my previous 9 k text.

What text editor were you using?

Is the file extension .txt, .rtf, .doc, .docx, or some other?

If you are lucky then in the same folder there will be a file with the same name but with an extension of .bak

This is a backup of the file.

If you rename this to change the .bak to the same as the corrupted file the it will open and you can see what it contains.

More information: a simple text file = that is, a Notepad .txt file. Thank you. Not any back copies (.bak), I have to cook with what I have: the original file.