Well, I may not have had the specific answers you might want, but I spent a bit of time researching the issue you described.

I was all set to cut and paste from my lengthy word doc with the research results when my computer shut down.

I had already "cut" the doc but did not get to the paste portion.

When the computer recovered all I had was a blank word doc, and have not been able to recover the material that I had cut."

I've been so frustrated about it, I just had to share my heart ache!

Sorry my friend; I meant well.