Recovering overwritten file

[Bostrolicious]

Hi,

Sincere apologies if this question has been answered elsewhere on this forum; I haven't been able to find it.

My sister was working on an excel sheet this morning and the program froze: I believe she somehow ended up overwiting the old file with a new version that doesn't contain all the information of the original. The file contains roll down menus to filter different data, and it now seems to be stuck on one of these filters without the roll down cells being clickable. Sometimes when I open the file now I notice what seems to be a short glimpse of the old file with all the data, before the new one replaces it. The new file seems to be too large to just contain the data I can access now, leading me to believe that the rest is somehow there, hidden.

I've tried looking in the recycle bin, the Temp folder and the folder where I think Excel saves temporary files (C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel). I have enabled the showing of hidden files and folders, in case the file is a hidden temporary file. I've also crashed excel by opening a dialog box and killing excel with the task manager, in order to get to the Document Recovery Task Pane. I couldn't find the file I was looking for there, however.

My sister is running Excel 2002 SP3 on Windows Vista 32-bit.

If anyone can offer any help at all on this I would be very thankful.
Cheers!

[jeronimoworks]

In such case I would suggest you effective professional recovery software

Make use of next one http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/repair_excel.html it will restore *.xls, *,xlt, *.xlsx, xlsm, *.xltm, *.xltx, *.xlam file formats

[steve.smith]

In such case I would suggest you effective professional recovery software

Make use of next one http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/repair_excel.html it will restore *.xls, *,xlt, *.xlsx, xlsm, *.xltm, *.xltx, *.xlam file formats

Bostrolicious is talking about a data recovery scenario, where he can recover overwritten data, not a excel repair software that you have suggested.

Note: As I know, overwritten data or file can not recovered by any data recovery software.

[FDibbins]

If the file has been over-written, then there is little chance of recovering it

Is she working on a network or stand-alone PC?

1 option to try would be to open a brand new file, and then to copy over all the data from the old file, 1 sheet at a time. Copy/paste 1 sheet, test, save, close reopen and check...save with a different name. repeat the copy/paste/test etc for the next sheet, but save back to the 1st (new) file name. This way, you will always have the last "working" version saved, if the next copy/paste contains something corrupted the original file

I know its a long-winded way, but I dont think you have any other choice.

Data recovery software like allenmac suggested will (sometimes) work on files that have been deleted, or on a memory stick that gets corrupted, but you have a file that was over-written. Thats a bit like saying...ooops I saved the file, but didnt mean to, how do I get back the way the file was before I saved it...kinda SOL in most cases

[chrisgermoy]

You may try this solution that helped me before: how to recover overwritten files

It is easy to follow and works well for me. hope that it helps you also.