How to recover Data from Damaged Workbooks in Excel on Windows/Mac

Published by Jacob Martin on December 4, 2014

When the workbook has been corrupted, Microsoft Office Excel automatically starts File Recovery mode and attempts to reopen and simultaneously repair the workbook.

Your workbook has been corrupted, so you cannot open it and Excel cannot always start File Recovery mode automatically. You can go for another method to recover workbook data when repairing a workbook is not successful.

For a safe side, save your workbook and create a backup copy always and save it. Else identify that excel automatically creates a recovery file at definite intervals. Through this way you can able to access a good copy of the workbook, accidentally if the original one gets corrupted.

There are many processes to use recover information from corrupted or damaged Microsoft Office Excel 2003 or Microsoft Office Excel 2007 files. In this article, the methods have been discussed including references to other Microsoft knowledge base in more details.

Methods for Recovering Data in Corrupted Excel Files

You can use the following methods to troubleshoot problems with opening or using Excel files:

• Open 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.

Repair a corrupted workbook manually

1. On the File tab, click Open.
2. In the Open dialog box, choose the corrupted workbook that you want to open.
3. Click the arrow next to the Open button, and then click Open and Repair.
4. Choose any one of the following:

• To recover as much of the workbook data as possible, click Repair.
• To extract values and formulas from the workbook when an attempt to repair the workbook is not successful, click Extract Data.

Recover data from a corrupted workbook

This method may help you to recover data that you have lost. You can try alternate methods if one doesn’t work you can try another one. You can also try third-party software solutions to seek to recover workbook data if you cannot recover your data by using these methods.

 Note: network error or a disk error makes you unworkable to open a workbook; you can move the workbook to a dissimilar hard drive else from the network to a local disk. Before facing and trying any of the recovery options.

 To recover data when the workbook is open in Excel, do one of the following:

• Revert the workbook to the last saved version-If you are editing a worksheet and the workbook becomes corrupted before saving your changes, if you able to recover the original worksheet by reverting it to the last saved version.

To revert the workbook to the last saved version, do the following:

1. On the File tab, click Open.
2. Double-click the name of the workbook that you have open in Excel.
3. Click yes to reopen the workbook.

Note: The workbook reverts to the last saved version of the workbook. Any of the changes that may have reason to the workbook to become corrupted have been discarded.

If the above methods are not successfully done then go for the below one with the help of software.

How to repair corrupted or damaged or Inaccessible MS Excel files by using software

The data that you have stored in MS Excel becomes inaccessible when a file gets corrupted only one way to repair and restore your data. You can restore the back-up files of the corrupted files. For this you have MS Excel Repair Tool, which has been designed to repair and recover the inaccessible file or corrupted files. It take outs the contents from the corrupted file and also rebuilds a new excel file that can be simply accessed. As well as it recovers the deleted excel spreadsheets alongside with the other important such as charts, formatting, graphs, images, hyperlinks and indentation etc. This amazing tool also rebuilds XLSX, XLS or any other format. It can repair your damaged files within few seconds, so download MS Excel Repair Tool.

Steps to recover Data from Damaged Workbooks in Excel:

Step 1: Download the recovery software and after that hit on “OK” button to start the process.

Step 2: To recover the corrupt file, hit on “Select file” button. BY using the “Look in” you can search from particular logical drive.

Step 3: Select the corrupt file from the search list with the help of check box. After that hit on “Select all” and hit on “Start” button to begin the scanning process.

Step 4: As soon as the scanning process completes, you can view your corrupt files.

Step 5: At last, hit on the “Start repair” button to begin the repairing process. Select the perfect location to save your repaired excel file and after that hit on “OK” button.

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