[comp.sys.mac] Trashed Excel files

gdavis@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis) (07/20/89)

A colleague of mine recently lost quite a few Excel files. She
created them one day, then came back a second day and modified
and saved them. But now Excel can no longer open any of them.
When you try to open one from the finder, Excel gives an
incorrect file format message. Though they are visible in the 
Finder as Excel documents, Excel doesn't see them in its 
Standard File Dialog. She claims she saved them as TEXT files,
but ResEdit shows a type of STAF (the creator type is correct).
Opened with Nisus (with or without changing the file type to
TEXT) they look like binary files. 

Anyone have any idea what could have happened, where the STAF
could have come from, or how to rescue them? My colleague
is not too competent with computers, but she's made lots of
files with Excel without problems.

System: MacII, Apple40, Apple 4-bit color,6.0.3, MultiFinder,
2 meg memory, no INITs

Thanks for any help.

Gary Davis