Recovering Excel files

[Guest]

My boyfriend's computer crashed and when he got the hard drive back there are
no excel files on it and most of his files are now Word files, but they're
not really Word files as when we try to open them, we're told they're in
another format. The computer wants a Small Business disk to open the files
(which we don't have and never had -- he was working from Office for Students
and Teachers 2002). Any idea on how to recover the files? I've tried
changing the extension, but they still show up as Word files and won't open.

 

[David Biddulph]

My guess is that the Excel data files are OK (and will be provided that you
don't open them in Word or another program and save from there). It looks
like you've lost your Excel installation, so you'll need to reinstall the
Excel application from your Office CD.

 

[Guest]

I don't know if additional info will help.

The Excel program is there. The files all show up as .doc files. They
won't open in Word. Because of the .doc extension, they won't open in Excel.
If I fail to open the file in Word, it tells me I need to install something
from the Small Business disk. Since we've never had a Small Business disk,
that makes it difficult. We are assuming that it wants the Small Business
disk for Excel, but don't know how to connect them. Changing the extension
only gives me a file like this: Unknown00005.xls.doc. The .doc continues to
show up in the filename.

Some other things are gone -- like his AOL mail program, but most other
things are still there and working. All his Word files are there and open
okay. His audio files and picture files are okay (although RealPlayer and
I-tunes are gone).