Excel 2004 corrupts XLS files

I have 20+ Excel 2004 users working in OS 10.4.10 on MacMinis who are
using a Windows 2000 server machine for a file server. About once a
week, one of the users will report not being able to open a file they
had previously saved. The error message is: "Unable to read file".
I've dragged these files to a Mac, tried to open them there, same
results. Have tried MacLink Plus to convert to another version of
Excel and the convert takes place but the newly converted file has
same error when opening. I can open the files in icExcel but that
separates the worksheets into separate files. I can use Excel 2003 to
open with the same error message but Excel 2003 can "repair" the file,
which leaves it somewhat readable but useless unless you print it and
use the data to create a new Excel file. This is Excel version 11.3.5.
Anyone seen this? Or have ideas how to stop it from happening????

On Feb 7, 4:22 am, Dasman wrote:
> I have 20+ Excel 2004 users working in OS 10.4.10 on MacMinis who are
> using a Windows 2000 server machine for a file server. About once a
> week, one of the users will report not being able to open a file they
> had previously saved. The error message is: "Unable to read file".
> I've dragged these files to a Mac, tried to open them there, same
> results. Have tried MacLink Plus to convert to another version of
> Excel and the convert takes place but the newly converted file has
> same error when opening. I can open the files in icExcel but that
> separates the worksheets into separate files. I can use Excel 2003 to
> open with the same error message but Excel 2003 can "repair" the file,
> which leaves it somewhat readable but useless unless you print it and
> use the data to create a new Excel file. This is Excel version 11.3.5.
> Anyone seen this? Or have ideas how to stop it from happening????

Hi Dasman,

You can try a popular Excel file recovery tool called Advanced Excel
Repair to repair your Excel file. It is a powerful tool to repair
corrupt or damaged Excel files.

Detailed information about Advanced Excel Repair can be found at
http://www.datanumen.com/aer/

And you can also download a free demo version at http://www.datanumen.com/aer/aer.exe

Alan