Recover corrupt Excel files after Data Recovery

[livpie]

I have a customer who went to Staples with a flash drive to get some copies made. Upon giving them her flash drive, the person from Staples managed to somehow delete all of the files from her flash drive. Based on what she has told me, I think the person extacted all the files to the local machine.
She is not local right now and I am unable to go to the store to help resolve the issue. So, I have been working remotely to recover the files. I believe I have been able to recover most of the files, but the problem is that all of the Excel files appear to be corrupt.
Does anyone know of a way to alleviate this problem? I have tried a couple of the programs that claim to repair corrupted files and a few other solutions I have found online with no luck.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Tom

 

[FoolishTech]

You're not going to like the answer...... are they xlsx? Those should be archives you can extract them with 7zip if not too badly corrupted. Data may be inside but not in it's original format hehe.

 

[Larry Sabo]

OpenOffice used to be pretty good at opening corrupted Word files. Maybe it or LibreOffice can also open corrupted Excel files. Worth a try. Also, I've had PhotoRec fully recover graphic files that other recovery programs partially recovered but with damaged images, so perhaps try to recover just the Excel files using PhotoRec and see if it has any better success.

 

[ShinyTech]

Screw that, she should go back to staples and threaten to sew. I used to work for a big store like staples and we had atleast one person a year sew and get either thier data back for free or about 250,000 bucks as the store is liable.

 

[FoolishTech]

LOL threaten to sew. If you don't get my data back I'll ... I'll ... knit you a sweater!

 

[ShinyTech]

Heck yea, make the sweater ichy and uncomfortable and make em wear it. Spellcheck you failed me again...

 

[Brand]

It also needs to have reindeer and little bells on it.

 

[Prune]

Tom
If you havent already, try S2 Services excellent Excel Recovery from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/corruptexcelrec/
Hope you have luck!

 

[JustInspired]

This originally serious thread now has me PMSL

Anyway, in all seriousness, you could give Advanced Office Repair a try. Bought it a couple of years ago and it has managed to recover stuff nothing else could. There are the odd times when nothing will help however.
More info at http://www.datanumen.com/aofr/