How to recover corrupted Excel workbook

When an Excel file goes haywire, don’t give up hope. Using one of these recovery tricks, you may still be able to salvage the data.

If the corrupted Excel file cannot be opened

1. Do not run Excel off a floppy disk
2. If Excel crashes and won’t open (not file specific)
3. Open the Excel File in Word, or Wordpad
4. Open in Microsoft’s Excel 97/2000 Viewer
5. Open in Excel XP
6. Open in another Spreadsheet program
7. Use External link formulas In another worksheet enter this formula into cell a1:
8. Disable macros
9. Open Excel in Safe Mode
10. Delete your Temporary Folder
11. Use Excel’s built-in Detect and Repair utility.

via fdrlab

Methods for Recovering Data in Corrupted Excel Files

Use a recovered copy of the document.

Use the Open and Repair command.

Save the file in HTML format.

Save the file in XML Spreadsheet format.

If a chart is linked to the corrupted file, use a macro to extract the data.

via microsoft

To recover data from a corrupted workbook

1. Open a new workbook, and save it using the name of the corrupted workbook, but in a different folder than the original.
2. Change the new sheets names to those in the corrupted workbook (try to remember all of them), and then save the workbook.
3. Open a new workbook. In cell A1 of the first sheet, insert a linked formula to cell A1 in the newly created workbook (steps 1 and 2).
4. Copy the formula to all cells covering the data area (as you remember it to be in the first sheet of the corrupted workbook).
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for all sheets, and then save and close the new workbook.
6. Change the linked source address. Select Data -> Edit links to file (in Manage Connections Group).
7. Locate the corrupted workbook, select it and then close the Edit Links dialog box.
8. Check the result. If the data appears in the new workbook, copy all cells in each sheet and paste them back as values.

via exceltip