File recovery (Excel & Word) - HELP PLEASE!

[Ozei]

I've just found some of my files are corrupted. They're all Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. When I try to open them all I get is a mass of symbols, characters and general gobbledegook.

Excel puts up this error message: "Excel cannot open the file {Name}.xlsx because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file." Word puts up a 'File Conversion' dialog with the words "Select the encoding that makes your document readable" above a preview box full of the aforementioned gobbledegook.

Is there anything I can do to repair the files? Any help greatly appreciated (as long as it works, LOL).

 

[chphotos]

Strange, as I've had the exact same problem on an excel file today; but I could open it on my Blackberry.

 

[Ozei]

Strange, as I've had the exact same problem on an excel file today; but I could open it on my Blackberry.

Was it an Excel file?

 

[Ozei]

I've just found some pdf files that won't open either - Acrobat says this: "Acrobat could not open <filename> because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn’t correctly decoded)."

Also a few jpeg image files refuse to open - "Can't read file header! Unknown file format or file not found!"

 

[Mikesphotaes]

Strange, could be malware. If it's a windows PC, download and install malwarebytes.

Best to run it in safe mode.

If no joy, try system restore to an earlier date.

 

[Ozei]

No, it's not malware - it happened during a backup which stalled part-way through due to Windows being unable to copy long file names.

I can't use system restore because the documents are all on D: drive and only C: drive (which is an SSD) is set to 'on' in protection settings. I've never known system restore to work anyway with Windows 7.

I've got four internal drives in this machine. Because the OS is on a relatively small SSD (120GB) all documents go to D: drive by default. I was backing up the contents of D: drive to E: drive when the problem happened (I was just doing a straight copy/paste from D to E).

 

[JohnnyJ]

Can you open your backup files on E: ?

 

[g7swz]

There are a number of ways to recover or repair Excel files including a built in document recovery feature. Try googling 'recover excell file' for more details.

 

[TopBanana]

Try opening Word and then File>Open.
Find the document you want to open, then click on it once.
Look for, and click on, the little downward arrow next to the "Open" button and select Open & repair (or something along those lines).

See if that works. It can also be done in excel.

 

[Ozei]

Can you open your backup files on E: ?

The problem is (because the SSD is so small) I set up Windows to move My Documents to D: drive. My Documents contained all of my data folders - the first one was called 'A1'.

One of the files in a sub-folder of 'A1' had a long file name/path and Windows didn't copy anything in 'A1' to E: drive. Not only that, the entire 'A1' folder has disappeared from D: drive - so I don't have it on either drive. Disaster!

I've run recovery software (Piriform Recuva & Stellar Phoenix) on both D and E drives. They come up with a list of recovered Excel & Word files from the 'A1' folder but when I try to open them they're all in gobbledegook. Here's an Excel. (A Word file is shown in the next post).

 

[Ozei]

Try opening Word and then File>Open.
Find the document you want to open, then click on it once.
Look for, and click on, the little downward arrow next to the "Open" button and select Open & repair (or something along those lines).

See if that works. It can also be done in excel.

That gives gobbledegook again. Here's a Word file.

 

[Ozei]

There are a number of ways to recover or repair Excel files including a built in document recovery feature. Try googling 'recover excell file' for more details.

I've tried the built-in repair option John - see above posts.

 

[arad85]

That looks like compressed data....

 

[Ozei]

That looks like compressed data....

The recovered file sizes are about right - e.g. 55kb for a 14-page Word document containing text only. If it was compressed wouldn't the file size be smaller?

 

[Ozei]

Any other ideas?

 

[TopBanana]

Someone in another thread has recommended this website for free software: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
And today they are giving away a recovery program for damaged MS Office files. Might be worth a try.
[I have no experience of getting software from that site though]

 

[neil_g]

id also be running a full disk check asap

 

[Ozei]

Someone in another thread has recommended this website for free software: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/
And today they are giving away a recovery program for damaged MS Office files. Might be worth a try.
[I have no experience of getting software from that site though]

Cheers Tim. It downloads & installs ok but doesn't seem to be capable of recovering anything. A faulty Excel file gave this: "Could not parse Structured Storage (error-7)" and a faulty Word file just gave: "error-11". There's no explanation of either error in the programme's help file. It does make plenty of offers for munsoft.com's developers to try to restore a file though - probably at enormous cost.

 

[Ozei]

id also be running a full disk check asap

I'm trying that now Neil (on one of the non-C drives) but 'chkdsk' is taking forever - I did tick both options boxes though (i.e. the ones shown here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA/Doc/images/130/c01872627.gif). Perhaps that's why it's so slow?

 

[arad85]

Full disk checks do take an age (several hours). As long as the percentage is incrementing slowly....

 

[Ozei]

It's still running - count is increasing but very, v-e-r-y slowly - I actually fell asleep watching it just then!

 

[neil_g]

I'm trying that now Neil (on one of the non-C drives) but 'chkdsk' is taking forever - I did tick both options boxes though (i.e. the ones shown here http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA/Doc/images/130/c01872627.gif). Perhaps that's why it's so slow?

scrap that. im surprised it even let you do that while windows is loaded.

load a command prompt and run a chkdsk c: /r then reboot

 

[Ozei]

scrap that. im surprised it even let you do that while windows is loaded.

load a command prompt and run a chkdsk c: /r then reboot

It's not c: drive, it's d:drive (data only) - Windows did say 'force dismount' for d: though.

Will try chkdsk d: /r then reboot.

 

[neil_g]

It's not c: drive, it's d:drive (data only) - Windows did say 'force dismount' for d: though.

Will try chkdsk d: /r then reboot.

ah sorry saw the screenshot had C: just that it would have had issues accessing the drive with windows running (would have prompted to do it on reboot)

 

[Ozei]

No faults found by chkdsk - I'm not surprised, it's a Windows problem rather than a hard drive problem.

 

[neil_g]

No faults found by chkdsk - I'm not surprised, it's a Windows problem rather than a hard drive problem.

Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to suspected corruption

 

[neil_g]

If i pm you my email I can have a fiddle if you send me a file if you like?

 

[Ozei]

If i pm you my email I can have a fiddle if you send me a file if you like?

Thanks Neil, I'd appreciate that - then I can email you a simple Word file.

 

[neil_g]

are you sure you arent running any sort of encryption?

its strange as the file is the same size as the original yet the contents are gibberish. something id expect to see with encryption..

 

[Ozei]

are you sure you arent running any sort of encryption?

....

Yes, positive - they're just ordinary Word 2010 files. Some (most) of the corrupted ones won't open at all but I suspect they'd contain the same sort of gibberish if they did.