Dean,
People have mentioned success with opening the corrupt Excel file in
OpenOffice, then resaving.

NickHK

"Dean" wrote in message
...
I have asked this question on another forum but there was no magic answers
for me, so I am trying it here - I am desperate, as the file in question
represents months of work!

I have a 10 MB file I have been expanding/refining over the last few months.
Last week, in the middle of mere cosmetic upgrading, it crashed.
Apparently, EXCEL now goes into a repair mode when that happens. Here is
the message I got:

Microsoft Excel File Repair Log. Errors were detected in file 'C:\Documents
and Settings\Dean\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\PM 03-02 - 4 (version
2).xls'. The following is a list of repairs: Lost Data Validation
information in one or more sheets.Damage to the file was so extensive that
repairs were not possible. Excel attempted to recover your formulas and
values, but some data may have been lost or corrupted.
The "repaired" file looked like (and acts like) a version I had
(fortunately) saved just seven minutes earlier, except that all cosmetics
had been wiped out, such as fonts, data validation choices, etc - not to
mention extensive cell comments. If I change a few inputs, both files still
produce identical results. Unfortunately, if I were to use the repaired
file and redo the cosmetics, it would be many, many hours of work. Also,
the error message above suggests it might still have corruption in it, so
I'm not sure what I would gain.

Over the years, this happened to me twice with two different files. The
first time, my file needed to be rebuilt from scratch. By the second time,
EXCEL had some sort of manual algorithm that peeled back the onion until
there was no longer any evidence of corruption. As it turned out, the thing
that seemed to fix it was the removal of some sort of cell formatting. Now,
EXCEL tries to repair the file automatically. In this case, I guess it is
telling me it cannot guarantee success.

Given that fact, it seems silly to think of using the repaired file, when I
have a working file just seven minutes earlier. However, regardless of
which file I would use, there is an issue of how such corruption takes hold.
Is it a one time spontaneous event, and if so, is it likely to recur? In
the past two times, it did not recur, which made it seem pretty random! If
it is not a one time event, but rather some sort of 'cumulative corruption'
(the straw broke the camel's back), what confidence can I have that the
results are correct? Also, how comfortable can I be in my strong belief
that the corruption is limited to cosmetics, and that the equations are not
compromised?

Is there a max EXCEL file size that is too big to be stable? Long ago, when
this first happened, someone at Microsoft, off the record, gave me a file
size number but I forget it. I recall he said that EXCEL was not a
programming language and people were asking too much of it, sometimes,
vis-a-vis monstrous, interconnected logic in files, etc. The fact that
EXCEL can now do so much it couldn't do a decade ago, it doesn't seem that
Microsoft is concerned, either that, or the architecture is so much
improved.

I know these are hard questions and the last guy basically told me to use my
own judgment, but if there is any research/info/experience out there, I
would love to hear of it.

Thanks so much!

Dean