File won't open

[Dr_Worm]

We are having a problem at work, the project managers create huge excel file with lots of formulas and links, etc. Every now and then one gets too big and when opening we get the message “This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down”. All we need to do is restore the back up from the previous night and split the file into two. We’ve tried to educate people on this matter, and it doesn’t happen too often.

At the moment I have a file that I can’t open because of this, and I don’t know when it was last modified, backups are only a week old and the oldest backup can’t be opened. I’ve tried running excel in safe mode, but that doesn’t help.

Is there a way to open this file? Runnig Excel 97 on Windows 98se.

 

[dk]

Hi,

You could try and use one of the Open Office products to open the spreadsheet. Go to the Open Office Website and download the software (it's free). Also, if you know anyone with Excel XP or Excel 2003 then you can see if they can open it (those versions apparently have better recovery mechanisms than older versions of Excel).

There are also companies that specialise in recovering corrupted documents. A quick Google search should reveal plenty.