Even if an XLS file that you are working on becomes corrupted, the next time you try to open it Microsoft Excel will automatically try to repair the file and then reopen it. The automatic recovery option will save you time when you try and recover the file. It may, in fact, also save quite a bit of the most recent changes that you may have made to the file. However, sometimes, the program is unable to automatically start the File Recovery Mode. In such situations, the user may be unable to open the workbook because it is corrupted and may have to use manual methods recover Excel files.
The best option is of course to take preventative measures and ensure that you are saving your workbook as frequently as possible. You can create a backup copy of the file you are working on every time you save or you could enable Excel to create a recovery file automatically at intervals specified by you. This way, even if the file becomes corrupted due to power failures or hard disk errors, or if the original is accidentally deleted, you can be sure of having at least one good copy of the original workbook.
Let us know see how we can recover Excel files manually. By simply clicking on the 'Microsoft Office' button, you can view the various options available to you ' click on the 'Open' option. This will give you a list of files that you can open. From this dialog box, select the workbook that you suspect is corrupted and would like to repair. Next to the 'Open' button, you will find the 'Open and Repair' button. Before starting the repair process, you can choose to what extent you would like the file to be restored. If you would like to repair the workbook as much as possible, then you should select the 'Repair' option. On the other hand, if you have been unsuccessful in your previous attempts to recover Excel workbooks then you should try to extract as much data, values and formulas from the workbook as possible. For this, you should select the 'Extract Data' option.
The above manual method should help you to restore the workbook failing which you can always try to recover as much data as possible from the damaged workbook and work on a new version. However, in some extreme cases, these methods fail entirely and you may be left wondering if you are going to lose all the important data contained in the files. Advanced Excel Repair from DataNumen is a powerful recovery tool that scans highly damaged Excel files and uses sophisticated algorithms to retrieve almost all the data from such files. Way ahead of similar recovery tools in both features and performance, Advanced Excel Repair gives you a convenient way of restoring valuable data by providing an easy-to-use interface and fast recovery time.
