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MS Office Excel 2003 "Unable to Read File"

7K views 6 replies 2 participants last post by  slurpee55 
#1 ·
Using Windows Vista, I have a Microsoft Office Excel 2003 file which I use regularly. It is password-protected, contains Macros and has many sheets which contain linked formulas between sheets.

Yesterday, I went to open it after I used it several times throughout the day. It's now giving me a "Unable To Read File". I clicked "OK" "Enabled Macros", typed in password, and it gave me "Excel found unreadable content in myfilename.xls. Do you want to recover the contents of this Workbook? If you trust this Workbook, click Yes." I clicked "Yes", and it took me back to click "Enable Macros" again, then to insert password again. Then it gives me the "Unable To Read File" again, then password again. Then it brings up a window with "Damage to the file was so extensive that repairs were not possible. Excel attempted to recover your formulas and values, but some data may have been lost or corrupted." I clicked "Close".

When I looked at the sheets, it just contained alot of numbers; no format or words, etc.

I've tried to open it in Word, as others have suggested, but it has not worked. Can someone help me recover this file? I really need the contents in it's original format.

Thank you in advance.
 
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#2 ·
Do you have Access? It might be able to either link to or import the spreadsheet.
Word won't deal with it too well if there are formatting problems.
Also, make a copy of the original file into another folder and try opening the new file without enabling macros.
 
#3 ·
Tried to link/import using Access, but unsuccessful. I think it may be because it's multiple worksheets, it wants me to save separately, but I can't get into the file to separate worksheets to save individually.

I also saved into a different folder & same thing is happening. Thanks, anyway.
 
#4 ·
Halleluyah! I got it!
In Explorer, I right-clicked on my Excel file. I selected "Restore Previous Versions".
It comes up with list of the my many previously saved versions.
I selected the last one I had saved, and I was able to recover the previous version.

Yeah! I'm so happy. Shewwwh; pretty scared there for a bit. Thank you, Slurpee55, for attempting to help me.
 
#6 ·
P.S. I'm not marking this as solved yet because, although I was able to open the previous version, I still did not open the actual last version of the "Unable to Read" file. I did make a copy of the "non-openable" file before recovering the previous version. Maybe someone'll be able to instruct on how to actually open such a file. Thanks.
 
#7 ·
If the file got corrupted, it will remain unreadable - there are data extraction services that might be able to get it back in whole or in part, but they tend to be quite expensive, so, unless you lost an incredible amount of work, or data worth a ton of money, I wouldn't bother with them.
 
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