I had all sorts of problems with Word (and Excel) on this machine a few weeks ago. Normal.dot was there, but in one of those directories that the system won't display unless you are very firm with it.
Mine's in C: \Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. I know it shouldn't be in Administrator, but I've been through all that
I stopped the nonsense of it being changed and/or disappearing by making it "read only" so it doesn't get messed about with - and by keeping a spare copy or two elsewhere.
Every time I close Word, it tells me it wants to update normal.dot and asks me to unprotect it. I'd love to stop it doing that, but at least my settings remain unchanged from week to week.