Tuesday, September 14, 2004

When bad things happen to a good Excel file

I don’t know about you but things stop working only when I need them the most. My car won’t start only when I oversleep and I’m late for a meeting, my television will die 5 minutes before the Super Bowl kickoff, and the projector will decide to malfunction during a presentation. I’ve been told these things happen all the time and that there is nothing you can do other than own two big screen TVs, have two cars available at all times, and keep an extra projector at hand. Well, the truth is I did have an extra car at hand, I found another projector to finish my presentation, and I used the TV in the kitchen to watch the game. I got lucky, but I wasn’t prepared.

I tend to believe in Murphy’s law that says that anything that can go wrong will. My experience has turned me into a believer so I am very careful and try to leave very little to chance. Other than my health the only thing I have to worry about is my computer and the information contained in it. I have worked too hard to leave the safety of my files in the hands of chance. I am careful with what I install, I keep my anti-virus updated (and never open an attachment I’m not expecting), and I always backup my files before I go home. Every day. Or so I thought. You see technology is a funny thing. You trust a piece of software to do what it’s supposed to do and then you forget it exists. After a while you even forget that it exists. That’s what happened to me.

Not surprisingly one morning when I attempted to open a particularly important file in Microsoft Excel I got the following message:

"An application error has occurred and an application error log is being generated. EXCEl.EXE ExceptionAccess Violation (0xc0000005), Address 0x30104b43"

I tried to open the file a couple of times with no success and asked around to see if anyone knew what that message was and how to correct the problem. I was told that it was a common error in Excel and that my file was probably corrupted. I had done nothing wrong! As I said I am very careful and take care of my computer so I was honestly surprised that something like this could happen, and that I would probably never even know the cause. I said the Excel file was important. That is an understatement. I had to file my taxes in a few days and ALL my accounting was in that file. Everything. I basically would have to run from the IRS, move to South America ... except that I had a backup. I always keep a backup. Don’t I? I mean I installed it last year and it always runs in the background, saving everything, making copies every day. I felt queezy but I was sure everything would be alright.

Nothing was alright. I didn’t configure the backup software correctly. It never ran. I did not have a copy of a single file in my computer. With a sinking feeling I looked at my computer and saw it as if it were made of glass, ready to brake into a million pieces. I selected a different Excel file and double clicked on it. I got the same error message. I tried ten different files. They were all corrupted.

Now I was in trouble. Who cares about a car not starting, a damn football game ... I needed that file, hell I needed all the Excel files in my computer! I doubted I could go to the IRS and tell them the dog ate my files. I don’t think they have a sense of humor that way.

I had to get the files back and I quickly searched the Internet to see if there was a way to make my files come back to life. Someone had to have thought of a software that would save me. I was and am, not a techie. I use computers to work but I don’t know how to fix them when they brake. It had to be something easy and it had to be good. I got very lucky.

In only a few minutes I realized I was not alone. Excel file corruption happens often enough that there are several solutions available, for a price. I found the one I needed right away. A company in Spain, Cimaware Software, was specialized in recovery software for Microsoft Office corruption and had an easily downloadable program I could use, and it was in English. Despite having a demo I bought the software right away. I glimpsed at their money guarantee and saw that if it didn’t work I would get my money back. I didn’t even care really. I just prayed for it to work, and it did. Like a charm. As if it had never happened.

I have never been so relieved in my life. I had gone through a thirty minutes of panic, and as easily as it had started it was over. Thirty minutes after finding out I could not access my files I was scrolling through the spreadsheets that were now as good as new. One download, four clicks, that’s it.

What can I say, I was given a second chance. I will never trust having only one security measure in place. This doesn’t mean I will have a third car available in case the second one doesn’t start, and I will not buy a third television set either. One thing I did do is buy the rest of the office recovery Suite to add to my list of safety Software programs. I hope I never lose another file to corruption, and I hope I configured my backup program correctly this time, but at least now I have a last resort tool and I will sleep better for it.

posted by John Langley @ 11:43 AM 3 comments

Monday, September 13, 2004

OfficeFIX for the recovery of damaged or corrupt Microsoft Office files

Everyone working with a computer will experience data loss. There is no way around it, computers are not perfect and there are too many factors involved, too many opportunities for the loss of critical information despite all your efforts to prevent it and even recover the data once it happens.

Microsoft’s Office Suite is the standard software used by most to keep their valuable information. Excel, Access and Word are the most widely used.

Data stored using Office has become mission critical. Users today store more data that is critical to their organizations and to their personal lives than ever before. The loss of critical data can cause major business processes to come to hault. Most companies and individuals rely solely on their backups as a preventive measure in case of disaster. This is a big mistake. Data loss is characterized by the inability to access data involving a previously functioning computer system or backup.

Backup technology has failed to adequately protect data. As I mentioned before, data loss situations arise not only because files cannot be accessed but because backups have not worked properly. Access databases, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents can become useless when needed most. The failure comes because backup systems are designed with a set of requirements that rely on a combination of technological elements and human intervention for their success. This only increases the chances for disaster.

Once the files become inaccesible recovery becomes the primary goal. Trying to analize the causes is important at a later stage to try to prevent it from happening again. Even then it is impossible to guarantee that it will never happen again.

Time becomes essential. Files need to be restored, and it has to happen now, when the files are needed. That is when software solutions such as Cimaware Software’s OfficeFIX come into play. Having OfficeFIX installed greatly reduces the time and resources needed to recover mission critical information contained in damaged or corrupt files. What the programs in OfficeFIX (ExcelFIX, AccessFIX, and WordFIX) do is extract the information in the damaged files, creating new ones that have been cleaned of the corruption. This will allow the user to access the new files immediately. It is not a temporary solution. It will successfully create perfect files in over 95% of corruption cases.

This does not mean you should rely only in OfficeFIX, backups put up the first fight against data loss. We all hope they will work correctly and in many cases they will, but only restoring the files as they were the last time you backed them up. This means that although your files may be restored they are a week old! OfficeFIX does not only come into play when the backup fails, because it will bring back the file as it was the last time you saved it. Considering the value of a single hour of work you can easily make an estimate as to how much restoring 2, 3, or 5 day old files can cost.

Considering the hundreds of success stories I have heard and read over the past 5 years regarding the recovery of Excel, Access, and Word files, OfficeFIX has been an invaluable tool for corporations large and small as well as individuals (many people keep all their tax records in either Excel or Access files).

In conclussion, we all need to protect ourselves against data loss. A safe Email software, firewalls, an antivirus, backing up and of course a reliable recovery software.

posted by John Langley @ 10:58 AM 1 comments