recovered but possibly corrupt file??

HI,

i have an odd problem with an excel spreadsheet... I save all of my work on
my C drive and while i was on holidays my boss deceided he would move all my
spreadsheets ovet to the server so they could be backed up. to do this he
took my main folder and 'Cut and Pasted' it across to the server! well, not
long into it he received some kind of error about not being able to move a
folder or something (possibly the desktop.ini file). all the files that it
was in the process of pasting are now lost! they are not on either the
server or on my c drive.. i managed to use some sort of free recovery
program for my main spreadsheet and it recovered the file but when i open it
its just all weird characters. (strange letters and squeares etc). is there
any way to save it????

I guess that if you only have one copy of a file, and you leave it on a very vunerable drive, in the care of a non-computer person you can expect to become the 'you should have a backup' recipient.

I guess my first question is, have you educated your boss about COPY instead of CUT ?

I presume that you have done a search for all *.xl* files on your C: and network drives.

The problem you describe sounds as though you either no longer have the font required to display the characters in the file, and whatever substitute font is being used isn't working well, or, that the file is truly corrupt.

Have you tried to open the file on another system?
Do you normally have just the regular fonts selected, and are they still visible?

If you click the Windows START button and type CHARMAP do you see a list of fonts including Arial, Courier, FixedSys, Tahoma and WingDings etc?

Does your MS Word and it's documents look ok ?

Are there any other clues?

Originally Posted by buttafly

HI,

i have an odd problem with an excel spreadsheet... I save all of my work on
my C drive and while i was on holidays my boss deceided he would move all my
spreadsheets ovet to the server so they could be backed up. to do this he
took my main folder and 'Cut and Pasted' it across to the server! well, not
long into it he received some kind of error about not being able to move a
folder or something (possibly the desktop.ini file). all the files that it
was in the process of pasting are now lost! they are not on either the
server or on my c drive.. i managed to use some sort of free recovery
program for my main spreadsheet and it recovered the file but when i open it
its just all weird characters. (strange letters and squeares etc). is there
any way to save it????

thanks bryan.

yeah i know - but the thing was that my hard drive was a hell of a lot more
reliable than the server - or the backer-upperer..... and i had never
expected anyone to actually log in to my pc and start cutting and pasting as
i am the only one who uses those files. anyway, whats done is done.. i did
a search on the actual docoment name but not all xl. files. will do that now
- maybe it renamed it or something. doubt it though.

the fonts are all there and any other document opens fine. no problem with
excel or word. just that particular spreadsheet. unfortunately i have no
other clues.....

"Bryan Hessey" wrote:

>
> I guess that if you only have one copy of a file, and you leave it on a
> very vunerable drive, in the care of a non-computer person you can
> expect to become the 'you should have a backup' recipient.
>
> I guess my first question is, have you educated your boss about COPY
> instead of CUT ?
>
> I presume that you have done a search for all *.xl* files on your C:
> and network drives.
>
> The problem you describe sounds as though you either no longer have the
> font required to display the characters in the file, and whatever
> substitute font is being used isn't working well, or, that the file is
> truly corrupt.
>
> Have you tried to open the file on another system?
> Do you normally have just the regular fonts selected, and are they
> still visible?
>
> If you click the Windows START button and type CHARMAP do you see a
> list of fonts including Arial, Courier, FixedSys, Tahoma and WingDings
> etc?
>
> Does your MS Word and it's documents look ok ?
>
> Are there any other clues?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> buttafly Wrote:
> > HI,
> >
> > i have an odd problem with an excel spreadsheet... I save all of my
> > work on
> > my C drive and while i was on holidays my boss deceided he would move
> > all my
> > spreadsheets ovet to the server so they could be backed up. to do this
> > he
> > took my main folder and 'Cut and Pasted' it across to the server!
> > well, not
> > long into it he received some kind of error about not being able to
> > move a
> > folder or something (possibly the desktop.ini file). all the files
> > that it
> > was in the process of pasting are now lost! they are not on either
> > the
> > server or on my c drive.. i managed to use some sort of free
> > recovery
> > program for my main spreadsheet and it recovered the file but when i
> > open it
> > its just all weird characters. (strange letters and squeares etc). is
> > there
> > any way to save it????
>
>
> --
> Bryan Hessey
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>