Error: Damage to an Excel file - unrecoverable

[nvitucci]

I'm getting this error when opening excel documents stored on a network
share. These are multi-sheet documents, and I'm 100% sure that the
information in them is valid (they were saved just days before). This
happens on more than one workstation, on multiple documents. A document
will work fine for a few days, then after someone changes it, the next
person to open it is faced with the dialog stating that repairs to the
file failed, because damage to the file was too extensive.

This is using Excel 2003, on both Windows 2000 and XP. The files
themselves are stored on a network share on Windows 2000 Server.

Any ideas?

 

[Dave Peterson]

No idea...

But if the file is copied (using windows explorer) to a local harddrive, does it
open ok?

Maybe it's a network problem???

You may want to try openOffice.

http://www.openoffice.org, a 60-65 meg download or a CD

A few people have posted that they could open files in OpenOffice that excel
couldn't.

 

[nvitucci]

Thanks, I'll try recovering in OpenOffice. I'd really like to get t
the root of the problem, because I have users that NEED to use Excel
and they can't modify documents without this happening. It happens o
the local drive too, both copying using Windows Explorer and when th
original document is "copied" locally by using Save As and picking
local folder. The next time this user opens the document I get th
same error.

Is there anything that this specific user (and a few others) could hav
done to their Excel that is corrupting files? Keep in mind, it is onl
happening on a few files; they can open/edit/save others with n
issue.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I haven't had that much experience with corrupt files. But I don't know of
anything that will corrupt a file that can be done by a user.