Adobe InDesign CS (original) crashes; corrupt file

Question

Help! I am a journalism adviser and the front page of our newspaper has randomly become corrupted. We use the old CS (it's all we can afford), and it's worked fine for three years until today.
Below is the error code I get when trying to open the file. Is there anything that can be done to salvage our front page? It was almost completed, and we go to press next week!
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: InDesign.exe
Application Version: 5.0.0.458
Application Timestamp: 45f900b6
Fault Module Name: BNCORE.RPLN
Fault Module Version: 5.0.0.458
Fault Module Timestamp: 45f90468
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00038d79
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

Answer 1

Do you start each issue clean from a template, or reycle the last issue and just delete old content and add new?
The latter is a very risky way to work. InDesign is more stable than most layout apps, but even it tends to get minor corruption over time when reworking a file. Those minor corruptions by themselves are usually not fatal, but as they accumulate you can eventually get to the point where a file will fail.
I would clear the recovery folder if there is anything in it (by default it is in the user profile, but you can find the location if ID will launch without crashing by checking the Preferences for File Handling) which will allow ID to open without trying to recover the damaged file. Then try to open the old file "as a copy." You might get lucky. If you do, immediately export that to .inx, then save the copy with a new name. Open the .inx and save that as yet another new-name .indd file. If you've been recycling, next issue you should make a brand new clean template.