Please Help Me – I’m Technically Illiterate

I had a notepad file. A fairly important one. And when I opened it up today the data was gone. It was there approximately 24 hours ago. I have read through all the “help” topics on my computer, but it seems that to restore a file I have to already have a backup (which if I had, I wouldn’t need to restore it).

Is there anyway to recover a file? Please.

I’m using Windows XP on a Compaq Presario. I tried to contact Microsoft, but my message keeps getting rejected. I’m not happy right now.

Thank you.