Cannot open XLS in Excel 97 (Device I/O Error)

[jmarkus]

Yesterday I was working on an Excel spreadsheet with a VBA macro in it. This morning I tried to open it and got a "Microsoft Visual Basic: Device I/O Error". I cannot open the file.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[ivymike]

open with macro security set to high, so that the macro is disabled?

 

[jmarkus]

Even with macros disabled, I get this error.

Jeff

 

[Mala]

I/O error usually implies that your file is irrecoverably corrupt.

I am afraid there's no way around this except to recreate your workbook - I say this coz I have encountered this situation occasionally and have not been able to find any other way...

Suggestion: Use the most recent 'good' copy of the file if you have one and work towards recreating it to the point of your current version (which got corrupted).


Mala Singh
'Dare to Imagine'

 

[analogkid2digitalman]

If the file did get corrupted, would there be a chance of running error checking on the drive in an attempt to repair it?

Of course, back up, and back up often!

Wheels within wheels / In a spiral array
A pattern so grand / And complex
Time after time / We lose sight of the way
Our causes can't see / Their effects.

 

[Mala]

It is unlikely that err checking would repair the file.

analogkid2digitalman is dead right when he says, 'back up, and back up often!'

Fortunately, Excel provides a way to do so without having to repeatedly create a backup manually....

It is a good idea to save an file with the backup option set to ON.

Here's how it is done:
When you create a new file, you use 'Save As...' to save it with an identifiable name. In the SaveAs dialog box look for a button captioned 'Tools' or 'Options...' - click this and select the checkbox for 'Always create backup' in the Save Options dialog box that appears.

Once this option is set ON, whenever you next save the file, the last saved version gets saved as the backup file (extension .xlb) of the same name in the same folder. So if a file gets corrupt, you can always recall the xlb file of the same name and save as xls. This way the max you will lose is a single session of work. It is highly unlikely thet both the xlb (backup) and the xls (current version) will get corrupted at the same time.



Mala Singh
'Dare to Imagine'

 

[ivymike]

that's a good tip - I'll have to try it. I've had a situation where a worksheet that was working just fine while open would fail to reopen later. Something to do with drawing objects embedded in charts that Excel just couldn't stand. The solution for me was to open the file using an Excel "clone" ("openoffice" or something like that), re-save the file, then re-open in excel. The clone ignored whatever was choking excel, and wrote out a valid excel file.

before I got an IT guy with the excel clone to help me out, I had managed to extract most of the info from my corrupted spreadsheet by using references to it in another spreadsheet. For some reason excel could "peek" into the bad spreadsheet but couldn't open it.