Recovering deleted files

[Lindsey]

Using MS Office 200 Premium
Either Windows 2000 or XP.

I have recently accidentally deleted all my files. I had
my files recovered by a third party but now when I try to
open my files I get the following error:

Filename cannot be accessed. The file may be read-only,
or you may be trying to access a read-only location. Or,
the server the document is stored on may not be responding

The files were deleted over a 'network link' from another
PC - can anyone help as to how these files can be made to
open as normal. They show in the folders as MS excel
files and have the excel 2000 icon against them -so they
are recognised but just will not open......

 

[David Benson]

Lindsey,

Unfortunately, if you are using a PC (as opposed to a Mac), the "Excel"
designation and icon have nothing to do with whether or not the file is a
usable Excel file. On PCs, Windows uses the file extension (e.g., the
".xls" on the end of the filename) to identify the file. You can apply this
extension to any kind of file, but that doesn't make it an Excel file.

That's the bad news. The good news is, the error message doesn't sound like
what you would get if the file was corrupted. Have you tried copying from
the network onto your hard disk before you open them?

Good luck.

-- David Benson