How to Recover a Microsoft Excel File That Is in Unrecognized Format?

MS Excel is an electronic spreadsheet program that can be used to store, organize and manipulate data. Using there are many possible errors in MS Excel. Sometimes excel spreadsheet becomes inaccessible or it can be opened due to some errors. Your excel file gets corrupted or damaged due to some unseen reasons like virus attack or due to the bad sector on the storage media, improper system shutdown, sudden close of MS Excel file application due to power shortage etc. If Microsoft Excel fails to recognize a file in the XLSX or XLS format, then the data contained in the file could be corrupted. When you try to open a corrupted workbook in Excel the program should automatically try to recover data from the file through File Recovery option. If File Recovery mode is unable to recover your file or doesn’t start then you can try to restore the file manually. For restoring the file manually first you have to change the program settings and then open the workbook with the use of “Open and Repair” option. 

Following are the steps mentioned below by which you can recover the file that is in unrecognized format. 

Step 1:  Launch the Excel and then press “Alt-F” to switch to the File tab. 

Step 2: Select “Options” from the menu and then select “Manual” from under Calculation Options on the Formulas tab.

Step 3: Click “OK” to save the changes you made. Click “Open” on the File tab and then navigate to the folder containing the file you want to recover. 

Step 4: Click on the file and select “Open and Repair” from the “Open” drop-down menu. 

Step 5: Click “Repair” to recover data from the selected workbook.

Also Read: How to fix Error: "Excel cannot open the file '(filename)'.xlsx”?

If you are still unable to recover the file that is in unrecognized format then there is another option available. You can use Microsoft Excel Repair Tool to recover your MS Excel file with an unrecognized format. This software allows you to recover all types of excel file. It can restore all corrupted excel file and can also recover everything including cell comments, charts, worksheet properties and other data too. IT recovers complete text and other data of the file and restores them without modifying original formatting.