Can't open xls file

[donwb]

Windows XP, all service packs & updates, Excel (Office) 2003.

I recently had to recover my PC using Norton Ghost.

I use a number of Excel *.xls projects containing VBA code.

The recovery was not without it's difficulties
and though some of these open quite normally,
others produce a message "The file is not in a recognizable format."

It suggests the file could be opened in text format and this I can do.

Is there any recognised way of converting the text back to a useable xls
file?

Also, in the dialog box containing the message it says click Help
for more information on solving this problem, but this only produces
a blank Microsoft Help screen.

Finally are there any tools in Windows or Office which can
recover this situation or recover corrupted files (assuming they are).

I'd be very glad of some assistance on this problem.
donwb

 

[Ken Wright]

If you have tried the Open and Repair option in Excel and it hasn't worked,
then I would suggest you download and install the latest version of
OpenOffice (Free download) as well as MS Office if for no other reason than
it seems able to open and repair corrupt Excel files that even Excel cannot
repair (Go figure). Not 100% guaranteed, but better odds than just relying
on Excel to fix it.

I keep OpenOffice for that very reason

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

 

[donwb]

Hi Ken
Many thanks for the OO suggestion.
It worked partially insofar as I was able to recover Data,
but unfortunately not the Code. That I'll have to rewrite.
donwb