Unable to read File

[Big John]

I have one particular file in Excel 97 which I open and update daily
(stock market stuff) and each day I copy the days entries and paste it
below for the next day. Been doing this for years with no hitch until a
couple of months ago then one day I tried to open the file and got a
notice "Unable to Read File". Tried everything I knew (which is not
much) with no luck. Fortunately I had the file saved to a flash drive
and was able to open it there and "Save As" back to by hard drive. It
worked fine for a while, then last week it happened again, but I didn't
bother to retrieve it from the flash drive. Just tried every day to
open it, with no luck for several days, then a couple of days ago it
reopened again like magic!! Today it balked again and I had to go
retrieve it again from my flash drive.

Can anyone tell me what may be causing this - no other files seem to be
affected. Also, if I reloaded Excel from my original CD, would I lose
all my files or are they stored separately?? I thought this might help.

I recently posted the same question but we got off on a tangent and I
never heard anything on this subject.

Big John

 

[Gord Dibben]

Being one particular file I would suggest that re-installing Excel would
probably not do much for you.

This file seems to be on the way out.

Can you copy the data to a new workbook and see what transpires?

I would not "Save As" back to the flash drive.

Best to save to HDD then copy to flash drive.

Working from and to removable media can be quite dodgy and cause file
corruption.

No.....a re-install of Excel would not lose any of your files.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Big John]

OK, Thanks,
I'll give that a shot and see what happens. Today it opened without a
hitch, so I'll now move it to a new workbook.

Thanks again

Jrw