Can't open xls file
 

Windows XP, all service packs & updates, Excel (Office) 2003.

I recently had to recover my PC using Norton Ghost.

I use a number of Excel *.xls projects containing VBA code.

The recovery was not without it's difficulties
and though some of these open quite normally,
others produce a message "The file is not in a recognizable format."

It suggests the file could be opened in text format and this I can do.

Is there any recognised way of converting the text back to a useable xls
file?

Also, in the dialog box containing the message it says click Help
for more information on solving this problem, but this only produces
a blank Microsoft Help screen.

Finally are there any tools in Windows or Office which can
recover this situation or recover corrupted files (assuming they are).

I'd be very glad of some assistance on this problem.
donwb