Excel spread sheet refuses to open. Possible Corrupted?

I just created a big excell spread sheet running ms excel 2003. I can open up excel but when accessing the file to be opened will get the endless open icon which looks like a spinning frisbee and then the title bad will say "not responding"

I have read that installing open office can possible open up a corrupted excel file but this failed to do so. Instead what it did was crash open office.

So im stuck with a file that refuses to open. What are some of the suggestions I could undergo to open up this file which, I suspect to be corrupted?

some ideas here
http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-a-Corrupt-Excel-File