Top 5 Methods For Virus Corrupted Excel Files Recovery

Summary:

In this article I am going to discuss about Excel virus and some quick tricks to detect virus in Excel. I will also share some tricks on how to remove Excel virus for quick and easy virus corrupted Excel files recovery.

Microsoft Excel is a very popular application of Microsoft Office Suite. This worksheet application provides Calculation, Pivot tables, Graphing tools, Macro programming language is known as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), etc. It is widely being used by individuals as well as enterprises for trading, accounting, Sales & Marketing, and many others.

However, apart from its popularity and uses, this is highly prone to corruption. Neither Mac nor Windows version is resistant to virus infection. Viruses, malware, ransomware might infect anytime, and as a result Excel files become inaccessible, corrupted, or damaged.

Well, this is a very irritating situation and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. As the virus corrupted Excel files might contain valuable information, data, calculation, and a lot more.

If you are also dealing with the same situation of virus in Excel then carefully read this post. As it covers how to repair virus infected Excel files and recover virus encrypted files.

What Type Of Virus In Excel Responsible For File Corruption?

Viruses are highly malicious and there are numerous kinds of Excel viruses. The Macro/VBA virus is malware that comes in various forms like PLDT, SVG, and CAR. This is designed in a way to infect any application written with a Macro language and MS Excel is one of them.

Consequently, this easily gets infected with Virus infection. In the Excel files, this malicious program takes the benefits of Macros by attaching itself to the file and secretly takes the Auto_Open function of Excel.

Moreover, there are many new kinds of Excel virus that comes embedded in the Excel document. The CryptoLocker virus is the one. This is very dangerous and easily infects the files, documents, and application stored on the PC.

So, the easiest way to protect your Excel files against PLDT/ SVG/ CAR Macro viruses is just disabling the Macros in the Excel files. And also scan your system with the good Excel Virus Removal tool.

In this way you can avoid the Excel files from getting infected with the virus but if your Excel files already have been infected with a virus. Then in that situation, you need to repair the corrupted Excel files.

Now it’s time to talk about another very essential aspect i.e how to decrypt Excel files encrypted by virus. 

How Do I Scan Excel File For Virus?

You can take benefit from Windows security for Excel virus scan. Windows security scans particular files or folders for easy detection of viruses in Excel. You will immediately get notifications once this tool found any threat.

1st option:

  • If you want to scan any particular file or folder then make a right-click over that specific file or folder.
  • After that choose the option scan with Microsoft Defender.

scan with Microsoft Defender

2nd option:

  • Alternatively, follow this path Start Settings Update & SecurityWindows Security

Windows-Update

  • After then in the opened window of  Windows Security choose the Virus & threat protection tab.

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  • From the opened window of Virus & threat protection choose the Scan options > Custom scan > Scan now. After that choose the file or folder you need to scan.

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3rd option:

Turn on the Microsoft Defender Antivirus in Windows Security.

  • For this you need to go to the Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security Virus & threat protection.

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  • Choose Manage settings and turn on the Real-time protection 
  • To turn on Microsoft Defender Antivirus in Windows Security, go to Start > Settings  > Update & Security  > Windows Security Virus & threat protection. Then, select Manage settings and switch Real-time protection to on. This will automatically turn on the Microsoft Defender Antivirus.

real time protection turned on

  •  If you are a Windows 10 for Enterprise users then turn on the Microsoft Defender Antivirus after uninstalling all the anti-viruses of your PC.

How To Repair & Recover Virus Corrupted Excel Files?

Follow the top 5 ways to repair virus corrupted Excel files and restore them without any modification to the data within.

Method 1: Open and Repair

If MS Excel does not automatically start the File recovery mode, then you need to manually repair and recover Microsoft Excel Virus infected files by making use of the Open and Repair utility.

Follow the steps given to do so:

1. First, click on the Microsoft Office button > click Open.

2. Then, in the Open dialog box > choose an infected Excel file.

Open And Repair Method

3. And click the arrow next to the Open tab > on the Open and Repair

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4. Perform one of the given steps:

    • Click on the Repair tab. (To recover data as much from Excel file)
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    • Click on the Extract Data tab. (To extract values and formulas from Excel file when repair file is unsuccessful.)

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Method 2: Open with Open Office

Here you can try to open corrupt or damaged Excel file in Open Office. This is an open-source Office suite and able to open and save corrupt Excel virus-infected files.

Method 3: HTML method

To repair virus infected Excel file you can try the HTML method. Here you need to open the Excel file and save it in HTML format.

Here know how to do so:

  • First, open the Excel file > go to “Save As”.If needed choose other formats from the drop-down menu in the “Save As Type” option.
  • And in the drop-down list > choose “Web Page”.

Save The File In HTML Format

  • To recover the entire document, it is important to select “Entire Workbook” > click on “Save”.

Please Note: Some elements of the original workbook may get deleted, the formatting may be lost. If Excel displays a message indicating the fact, click “Yes” to accept the risk and to continue

  • When the file is saved, situate it in the folder where you saved the file. To do this click “File”> select “open”> open the folder to find the file. As you find it, right-click on the file> select “Open with Microsoft Office Excel”.
  • When the document is open > go to “Save As”> select Excel format next to the “Save As Type” option. When asked for a Page Title, create this is not the same as the original corrupted file. Click “Save” for completing the entire process.

Performing the above step not only repair virus in Excel files but also does easy virus corrupted Excel files recovery.

Method 4: SYLK Method

If the above-given method won’t help you to repair Microsoft Excel virus-infected files then try to repair it with the SYLK (Symbolic Link Format) method.

For doing this you need to open the Excel file and save it in SYLK format. With this, the damaged elements might get filtered and then discard the filtered elements to repair and recover the corrupted Excel XLS or XLSX file. 

Save The Workbook In SYLK

Method 5:  Move the File

 Well, it is found that simply moving the corrupt Excel file can do the MAGIC.

If by following the repair method the infected Excel file is not repaired then move the corrupted file to another folder, drive, or server as might happen due to the virus infection the Excel file becomes inaccessible and you are not able to access it.

 If possible then try to open Excel file on another computer or scan Excel file for virus online.

Best Software For Virus Corrupted Excel Files Recovery

It is recommended to make use of the MS Excel Repair Tool. This is the best tool to repair all sorts of issues, corruption, errors in Excel workbooks. This tool allows to easily restore all corrupt excel file including the charts, worksheet properties cell comments, and other important data.

This is a unique tool to repair multiple Excel files at one repair cycle and recovers the entire data in a preferred location. It is easy to use and compatible with both Windows as well as Mac operating systems. This supports the entire Excel version.

Try Now       Buy Now
* Free version of the product only previews recoverable data.

Steps to Utilize MS Excel Repair Tool:

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Final Verdict:

Thanks for reading the article. Hope after reading the article now you must have got enough idea of how to decrypt Excel files encrypted by virus. I tried my best to provide a reliable solution to repair virus infected Excel files. But if you are not able to repair it with the manual solution then make use of the automatic tool.

As it guarantees for virus corrupted Excel files recovery and entire data stored in it without making any changes in their original format.

In case you have any additional workarounds that proved successful or questions concerning the ones presented. Do tell us in the comments or you can visit the Repair MS Excel Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Good Luck…



Priyanka is a content marketing expert. She writes tech blogs and has expertise in MS Office, Excel, and other tech subjects. Her distinctive art of presenting tech information in the easy-to-understand language is very impressive. When not writing, she loves unplanned travels.