Corrupt File?

[Johnny]

Hi,

I have been given a excel file that I cannot open. It was
created on winnt 4 workstation, office 97, and it was
password protected. I have attempted to open this file up
with excel, word, notepad, etc, and it says "unable to
read file" I am attempting to open this file with the
original OS and office 97 with no luck. I have attempted
to open this file with Office 2000 and XP on Win2K, no
success. Cann anyone help me with this? Real important.
Thanks. --johnny

 

[Dave Peterson]

You've tried Excel2002. You may want to try OpenOffice, both have a reputation
for
better recovery than earlier versions of excel:
(http://www.openoffice.org, a 50 meg download or a CD).

But if notepad can't open it, it sounds like there's something wrong with the
media itself. Is this (or was this) ever saved to a floppy? Maybe the file is
just too corrupt for anything to read it.

Any chance you have a backup--maybe an email to someone else.

 

[Johnny]

Thanks Dave. I've installed OpenOffice, but this excel
file is password protected. When I type in the password,
I get "unable to read file". So I cannot open it using
OpenOffice. Any more ideas, this is real important.
Thanks. --johnny

 

[Dave Peterson]

There are commercial recovery services available.

Here's a link to one. (I've never used it and you can probably find lots more
via google.)

http://www.officerecovery.com/

 

[robert3000]

Try Excel file recovery service, for example http://www.fdrlab.co