MS Excel Corrupted file

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:12 pm

The file is 32MB (big). The version of Excel is 9.0.2720 running on Win 2000 Professional (5.0.2195 SP4) with 512MB of RAM and zillions of GB of hard drive space (which are working just fine).

The file went wonky when I tried to save it yesterday. It's not appreciably larger or smaller than it was before the mis-save. However, when I try to open the file (any of File -> filename; File -> Open -> browse to file; or double clicking the file through explorer), the progress bar gets 95% of the way towards opening the file and then Excel just freezes. I can close it through the Task Manager, and I can also close Excel through a right-click -> close maneuver off the task bar.

I've tried to use the "Detect and Repair" function off of Excel's help menu, but that doesn't seem to be applicable to a single file (rather it's for reconstituting Excel as a whole). The rest of my Excel files are fine.

Are there any decent ways to reconstitute an excel file that has seemingly gone wonky? I only store it locally, so going to a backup is going to cost me many week's worth of efforts. Suggestions?

~Neal
PS It has no butt, and I cannot discern a viable way of getting it drunk in the first place, so the obvious advice is right out.

Lassr · Post by **Lassr** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:47 pm

you could try this. It has a free demo.
http://www.cimaware.com/main/products/excelfix.php

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:53 pm

You might try asking this question on the forums located here. They have been kind enough to help out in the past. The name of the site is cheesy, but it's full of Excel geeks.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:10 pm

Lassr wrote:you could try this. It has a free demo.
http://www.cimaware.com/main/products/excelfix.php

This definitely worked. Unfortunately the free demo (intentionally) borks about 1/10th of your data and won't let you save the recovered file, and the full version prices in at about a hundred bucks.

I'm off to try Mr. Excel to see if they've got any suggestions. Thanks for the advice, guys.

~Neal

Lassr · Post by **Lassr** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:22 pm

The Meal wrote:
Lassr wrote:you could try this. It has a free demo.
http://www.cimaware.com/main/products/excelfix.php
This definitely worked. Unfortunately the free demo (intentionally) borks about 1/10th of your data and won't let you save the recovered file, and the full version prices in at about a hundred bucks.

I'm off to try Mr. Excel to see if they've got any suggestions. Thanks for the advice, guys.

~Neal

That figures. I hadn't tried it but I had it bookmarked if i ever lost another file to corruption. Now i know not to bother...

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:25 pm

Lassr, it looks like there is a family of those sorts of programs that do the same thing (or similar). I checked out the forums on Mr. Excel, and MS has a (very generic) help page on recovery options. As I can't open my file at all, I'm limited to trying out their "external references" method. Wish me luck.

~Neal

Lassr · Post by **Lassr** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:28 pm

Does the spreadsheet have a lot of formulas? I think you can try to open it in Excel Viewer if you have that installed, but it will only show content that you could copy and paste to a new spreadsheet.

Lassr · Post by **Lassr** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:31 pm

The Meal wrote:Lassr, it looks like there is a family of those sorts of programs that do the same thing (or similar). I checked out the forums on Mr. Excel, and MS has a (very generic) help page on recovery options. As I can't open my file at all, I'm limited to trying out their "external references" method. Wish me luck.

~Neal

Yep, there's my option listed there at the bottom. Good luck!!! I can only imagine the data you've got stored in a 32MB file!

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:39 pm

Lassr wrote:Does the spreadsheet have a lot of formulas? I think you can try to open it in Excel Viewer if you have that installed, but it will only show content that you could copy and paste to a new spreadsheet.

It has an absolute *boatload* of formulas and charts embedded within it.

Fortunately I can limp back to my feet using the recovery options from this page, as that'll give me access to the recent data I need (and can dump into a backed up and functional version of the file) . *Unfortunately* I've significantly modified a lot of the formulas since my last back-up, so while I can save the data I'm going to have to "reinvent the wheel" with regards to my manipulation of the data. I probably spent about six hours "perfecting" those changed formulas, so if I need to be smart again about working with those formulas, past history tells me that it'll be a 12-hour job (nothing ever works right twice afterall). Bleh.

Fortunately this *will* get me back in business, as opposed to "Yer screwed!" I'm certain that these auto recovery programs are pretty darn simple (one of them was 531kb!) and probably basically automate the stuff I linked in the MS Knowledgebase. But for saving $90, I can limp by doing it my way.

~Neal

Lassr · Post by **Lassr** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:00 pm

The Meal wrote:
Lassr wrote: *Unfortunately* I've significantly modified a lot of the formulas since my last back-up, so while I can save the data I'm going to have to "reinvent the wheel" with regards to my manipulation of the data. I probably spent about six hours "perfecting" those changed formulas, so if I need to be smart again about working with those formulas, past history tells me that it'll be a 12-hour job (nothing ever works right twice afterall). Bleh.
~Neal

I feel your pain...I had to do this last year. I've since started backing up once a week to a server and a zip disk to be safe.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:58 am

Well, my backup's screwed, too, so I'm either shelling out copious $ or I'm fuct.

Fun.

~Neal

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:14 pm

The Meal wrote:Well, my backup's screwed, too, so I'm either shelling out copious $ or I'm fuct.

Fun.

~Neal

Ouchie... sucky... blech. I once lost an original researched paper in college that was around a 25 pager. Nothing like losing your huge Excel file, but it did suck good lord. I even had backups but all copies got unretrievably corrupted. It would have been one thing if it was an easy book report or something, but being original research it was a chore re-writing it and came at a very inopportune time. Nothing like telling your professor, yeah the computer ate my paper... even the two backups... no really! Thankfully, since the head of the computer lab saw all this go down he backed me up and I got an extension.

This is an outside of the box idea, but what about visiting a computer lab at your local college? CU is a bit of a drive for you but there is a community college nearby for you. You may be able to make friends with a tech who has access to programs to recover corrupted files and who would be willing to help you save buying the software. It's worked for me in similar situations in the past, it might be worth a shot.

Dirt · Post by **Dirt** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 3:20 pm

Go to USENET. I'm sure some Russian or Chinese guy has already been able to hack the demo of that software.