Excel .XLS files un-accessible

[Hermanator]

Hello all,

I have a problem with a .xls file that I have on my HD. It's completely unaccessible. When I try to open it with MS Excel (Excel 2002, Office XP), Excel just freezes. When I try to copy it with explorer to another folder or disk, explorer freezes. When I try to copy it with Total Commander, than it also freezes. Scandisk and chkdsk give no errors and also Western Digital's "Data LifeGuard Diagnostics" gives no error. The HD is only half a year old anyway.

I have previously posted this problem in the Windows XP section (

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1110419&page=1)

but since I think that the problem may be related to MS Excel, I have re-posted it in this forum.

This MS Knowledge Base article gave me the idea that the problem is due to a certain technique of Excel:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/213951/

This KB article talks about a technique of Excel that is called "back seeking". From the KB: "This "jumping back" part may be what is causing the intermittent corruption of files especially when you are saving to a floppy disk drive."
This might very well be related to my problem. Because this is the 2nd time that I experience this problem, and in both cases it concerned a rather big (1 MB) .xls file, that I updated and saved regularly.

The only problem is that the KB article concerns Excel 2000 and only mentions workarounds for Windows 95 & Windows 98, while I use Excel 2002 (Office XP) on Windows XP Pro.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of problems? Any suggestions?

Thank you!

 

[ETID]

If you only need the data contained in the .xls...maybe this will FAQ will help you.

faq68-1022

 

[KenWright]

Have you tried 'Open and repair' in Excel 2002. On the File / Open dialog box you will see a dfrop down arrow on the 'Open' button. Try that and pick an option.

Regards
Ken...........

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[Hermanator]

Both options don't work.
Excel freezes when I use Open & Repair and it also freezes when I link to the data inside the sheet by the method as described in the FAQ......

 

[KenWright]

The best option I know of for opening dodgy Excel fiels is actually the free office suite 'OpenOffice' which is available as a download from

http://www.openoffice.org

Note though it is circa a 70MB download, but I have had it open a number of Excel files that Excel couldn't. Sometimes will only get you back raw data, ie no formulas or code etc, but often better than nothing.

Regards
Ken...........

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It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission
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