Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.misc
|
|||
|
|||
Lost Excel File
After a power cut one of our machines which had an Excel spreadsheet open
would not restart. Windows would not run but I have been able to put the hard drive in another machine as a second drive and access the files on it. My problem is that the spreadsheet that was open has disapeared. I have tried a couple of free file recovery progs and have found a TMP file in the directory that the original was in. I am guessing that if I could start Office from the crashed drive then it would trigger the "recovered file" procedure. If I rename the TMP file to XLS then it will open but most it looks garbage. Is there another way to open one of these files? Please help. Many Thanks, Kevan |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.excel.misc
|
|||
|
|||
Lost Excel File
I don't have much other than bad news for you. I'm thinking that the power
outage came at a very bad point - probably while the .xls file was being written to the drive. In any event it came while the file was open and Excel/Windows had no opportunity to close it and update the directory entry. The .tmp file is probably all you have of it now and I think that any attempt to open it is just going to show you what you have already seen. If you cannot see all of the folders/files on the crashed disk, here's something you can try to do to recover data from that crashed disk, and it might get your data back: go to http://www.knoppix.org/ and download a copy of Knoppix and create a bootable CD from the download (that's all done pretty automatically). Set your system to boot from CD and boot from the Knoppix CD. Eventually you'll be presented with a Windows-like desktop and will be able to browse all drives on the system, search for files and copy them for data retrieval. One thing to note: initially Knoppix has all drives set to read-only, so you'll have to set one up to be able to write with (using equivalent of right-click .. properties). When i have to do this kind of thing for data recovery, I usually attach a large (16GB) USB thumb drive to the system to copy the recovered files to. It's a little slow but reduces risk of Knoppix altering directory structure of another hard drive - something they warn of the possibility of. It's never messed up the thumb drive, but you never know. I hope someone comes along and offers a better solution to you. Before going I'll make 2 recommendations that I think will help in future situations like this: #1 - invest in some Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units for your business machines. They will keep your systems powered up during even a total power failure long enough to gracefully close programs and shut the systems down, helping to prevent data loss. They will also help you ride right through transient brownouts - those 'light-blinking' mini-power drops without data loss. APC (American Power Conversion), Belkin and Tripp Lite all make good ones. #2 - develop and implement a good backup strategy to help protect your critical business (and home) files. Then in a situation like this, while you may lose recent work done in a file, at least a backup copy is available to give you a good start at rebuilding the file to the state it was in when it was destroyed. "Polyprod" wrote: After a power cut one of our machines which had an Excel spreadsheet open would not restart. Windows would not run but I have been able to put the hard drive in another machine as a second drive and access the files on it. My problem is that the spreadsheet that was open has disapeared. I have tried a couple of free file recovery progs and have found a TMP file in the directory that the original was in. I am guessing that if I could start Office from the crashed drive then it would trigger the "recovered file" procedure. If I rename the TMP file to XLS then it will open but most it looks garbage. Is there another way to open one of these files? Please help. Many Thanks, Kevan |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Excel file downloaded and lost HELP!!!!!!!!!!!! | Excel Discussion (Misc queries) | |||
How recover a lost file in Excel 2003? | Excel Discussion (Misc queries) | |||
excel file lost | Excel Discussion (Misc queries) | |||
Empty Excel File -- Data Lost? | Excel Discussion (Misc queries) | |||
Empty Excel File -- Data Lost? | Excel Worksheet Functions |