# Corrupt Excel 98 file



## jitorrez (Nov 26, 2002)

When I open this file all I get are grabled characters. Last week the file was fine, unfortunately I backed it up this weekend and the backup is also grabled. Every other Excel file on my computer seems to work fine. The Excel file has many worksheets, if it matters.

What is the best way to retreive this data. Should I buy Norton Utilities or some other software, or is it a lost cause?


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## Valiant (Apr 21, 2002)

Norton will only protect files if it was previously installed before it went awol.... I'm not sure how well their recovery software works on corrupted files... it'd have to know the structure of the file... headers... footers... and then try to reorganize the data as it seemed to make sense, but the problem would be there'd be billions of possibilities, so unless someone knows of a tool, it is my opinion that you should start on recreating the file, and if between now and when you finish someone finds a cure we'll let you know...


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