Recover overwritten Excel file

[Lewis]

I was working on the file "April 2003", and I wanted to
create the "April 2004". I made the modifications, and
instead of using "Saving as..." I used "Save".

I know the information is there, given the size of the file
(the modifications were mostly clearing cells). How could I
recover the information? Naturally, I did not have the
"automatic backup" on :-(.

Excel 98, MacOS 9.1

I am sure many have been here before me...

Thanks for any help!

Lewis

 

[Chip Pearson]

Lewis,

The original file is gone forever. Sorry.


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com

 

[Lewis]

Thanks for the clarity! Now I know I have no hope.

But, but,... A brand new file with the same contents is
only 12 KB, while the overwritten file is 28 KB. Something
else must be there, taking 16 KB!!

Lewis

 

[Franksta]

Basically, when you open an Excel spreadsheet, certain
cells are "active", roughly a page or two worth of cells
per workbook. However, if you have worked on data outside
of that page, then deleted it, you will notice the scroll
bars can scroll to the point where the data used to be.
Say if you had data in line 1000, then deleted it and all
other data between 20 and a 1000. the scroll bar will
still scroll down to 1000. It may appear to be nothing in
those cells but Excel remembers that there was data their
so saves that information.

If you copy and paste data from one spreadsheet to
another, you will only look at taking data, no blank
spaces, therefore limiting the amount of
overhead "layout" info migrated in the creation of a new
file.

Hence this could be contributing to the variance of file
size between the old version of the file and the "clean"
new file. Kinda discussed in the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;816952

The data that was overwritten is generally (like 99%
generally) unrecoverable from that file. If you haven't
cleared your temp files, you may be able to recover from
there but it isn't likely. Some stuff you can try are
detailed in the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-
us;150368


Cheers,
Franksta.