file corruption

A

alex22

I'll start with questions, read below for the background:

What should Excel users do to prevent file corruption or it’s beyon
our control?

Can I link to a file and extract formulas, not values?


I’ve had this problem for some time already. Once in a while my mai
working file wouldn’t open with the notorious: “Excel.exe has generate
errors and will be closed by Windows”.

I tried to cure Excel using all methods mentioned on various sites an
forums but nothing works. I think it’s because the methods are for th
case when Excel is corrupted, not a particular file. The problem is onl
with this specific file and its backup, other files work fine. The fil
in question is from 10 to 17 MB large and contains queries, lots o
formulas and macros. I only save it to the hard drive.

I manage to restore the corrupted file partially through links from
new workbook (only values, not formulas or macros of course). Also,
save backups frequently so I can go back and redo the latest work, bu
it's just really annoying. Since I do a lot of changes every day, it'
hard to trace what particular actions caused the file to becom
corrupted. I suspect they are different in every single case, bu
maybe I'm wrong. I use Excel 2000 but will switch to 2003 soon.



Thanks a lot
 
D

Dave Peterson

I've only seen a couple of really corrupted workbooks. They scared the heck out
me, though.

In one case, it turned out to be a single worksheet in the workbook that was
causing the trouble. I rebuilt that worksheet and tossed the old and put in the
new and (knock wood), it's still up and running.

This workbook had lots of different formats (font colors and fill colors in
random cells). It also had tons of comments.

My gut feeling (nothing scientific), was that it was all the comments that
caused the trouble. Because of this gut feeling, I tend to stay away from lots
of comments in a worksheet.

In fact, I'll still use colors, but I'm usually consistent (whole row/column at
a time.) I also tend to stay away from Data|Validation and conditional
formatting. (But that's mostly because I don't like them!)

And when you find yourself with a corrupted workbook...

You may want to try a different version of excel to see if it can open it.
(xl2002+ may work)

And OpenOffice has a better reputation for opening files that earlier versions
of excel couldn't.

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

If the file is really important, there are commercial recovery services. I've
never used it, but you might want to check into:
http://www.officerecovery.com
 
A

alex22

Thanks for your response, Dave.

My workbook doesn't contain a lot of comments or formatting. It seem
like the problem started when I incorporated some OFFSET formulas, bu
there were some other changes that might have been responsible.

I tried OpenOffice, it freezes trying to calculate the workbook
Unchecked "autocalculate": same thing (I wonder why it's trying t
calculate now)

I'll try Excel 2002 or 2003. Maybe that'll help. I wonder if late
versions are more stable and won't cause file corruption in future.

Do you know if there's any way to link to another file's formulas o
macros?

I'm starting to backup my macros in Word from now on ..
 
D

Dave Peterson

I don't know a way of getting the formulas except by opening the workbook.

Maybe someone knows of a way and will chime in.
 
Top