Excel file won't open

[PolarBear]

Hi,

I have Excel 2000 and when I try to open this particular xls file Excel
shows the Opening file bar at the bottom with 2 bars and CPU load is
50%, and it stays like this until I kill Excel.exe. I can open the
file without any problems in Excel Viewer 2003. The file is small ~
100 KB and no macros.

I'm going to see if I can open it in Excel 2003 at home.

Any ideas what may be the problem?

Thanks

 

[HS Hartkamp]

I have the same problem sometimes (once every 3-5 months), and it seems that
the file is corrupted. It won't open in Excel on any computer.

My remedy: get a backup and re-do the last few changes (and shout a bit or
get angry)
If the data is really important and no backup is available, you can recover
parts by creating a new sheet and linking the data from the corrupted one:

- Create a new workbook with a proper name, and a new one called test.xls or
something (both in the same folder as the corrupted one). Open both and link
cell A1 of the proper sheet A1 on test.xls
- Close the sheet test.xls, and you'll see the formula in A1 changing to
include the full path and filename of test.xls (with brackets, quotes and
the like)
- Change the appropriate bits from test.xls to the name of the corrupted
sheet, and you have recovered cell A1 of your lost data (This is likely to
work as the viewer also reads the file)
- Copy down and right for the rest of the sheet, and repeat on the other
sheets of the workbook.
- 'Copy' and 'Paste values' to get rid of the formulas and have the real
data back.
- Re-create the formatting from memory.

A bit complicated perhaps, so I usually refer to getting angry and accepting
some rework.

Bas Hartkamp.