Corrupt Excel file? Memory error. (2000)

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I worked on a spreadsheet on my laptop for almost 5 hours this morning. After having another cup of coffee I attempted to open the file and keep getting the following error:

DDE Server Window: EXCEL.EXE – Application Error
The instruction at “0x30075f02” referenced memory at “0x04510ab0”. The memory
could not be “written”.

I copied it to diskette and have been unable to open it on other PC’s, with the same error, so it appears that the file became corrupt. I would really prefer not to have to start over with this — is there any way to open this file so I can get at least some of the information?

Thanks for any tips –

Randy

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Randy

Can you recreate the workbook again?

Do you have a backup copy?

Can you clean up the workbook? Do you need help doing this?

How many fonts and colors do you have?

You know Excel workbooks are very susceptible to damage.

Good luck.

Wassim

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If there are any macros in the workbook, try opening the workbook without executing any auto macros. Open Excel and then Use File Open to navigate to the file. Select the file and hold down the Shift key when you press Open.

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Randy, some things that have worked for me, although they may or may not apply in your case:

1. Delete all files and folders in the WindowsTemp directory (use at your own risk in case some apps are using these-never has been a problem for me however)

2. Try the Detect and Repair option under Help

3. Try saving as an HTML file (although you might lose some formatting I believe)

4. Search for files with extensions .xlb and delete or rename them (this has cured most of my problems since my favorite thing to do is create custom toolbars and manipulate the user interface).

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If none of the other posts about how you might be able to open the workbook resolves the problem, you may be able to get the information out of it by linking to it from another workbook. If, for example, your corrupt file is C:My Documentsfilename.xls, which has workings on Sheet1, open a new workbook and insert the formula:
=’C:My Documents[filename.xls]Sheet1′!A1
If all goes well, you’ll now have whatever was in cell A1 on Sheet1 of the corrupt workbook. If Excel accepts this, copying the formula across and down to cover the used range in the corrupt worksheet. This will give you the values (though not the underlying formulae or formatting) for all cells on the that worksheet. Change the Sheet1 reference to match whatever other worksheets your corrupt workbook has and you’ll get the equivalent results for them too.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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MACROPOD – Thanks! That’s one thing that I didn’t think of, which worked perfectly. I was able to retreive everything but one Sheet, which must be what was causing the problem. I’ll remember this for future reference.

Thanks to everyone else who replied to this post too.

Randy

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On one occasion, I was able to recover a corrupt Excel file by opeing it in IE.

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A few tips:

Options to try and open a corrupt file

– Set calculation to manual
– open the file, but disable macros (assuming you’ve set macro security to medium: Tools, Macro, security)
– As soon as you’ve clicked the disable macros button, press control-pageup or control-pagedown, thus changing sheets.

If that does not work, try creating a link to the file:

=’c:my documents[MyFileName.xls]Sheet1′!A1

and copy right and down. This at least gets you the worksheets values.

Sometimes the Excel viewer (or Word) enables you to open the file and copy information out of it.

Also, Excel XP can sometimes repair XL files with trouble.

Lastly: Download the office suite from www dot sun dot com slash staroffice (awkward spelling to hopefully avoid another autodeletion of posting…) it’s a killer app for file recovery.

And one more:

Download my Autosafe.zip from http://www.bmsltd.ie/mvp%5B/url%5D

Edited Mar 13th 2004 to update link

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Jan, have you tried the new StarOffice yet?

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Nope. I have a space problem on my drive. Besides that I’m glad my system runs stably as it is now….

I just got this advice from the MS NG and copied it in.

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