VB.net reading Excel page - asp.net

Question

I am trying to read an Excel page but I get the following error:
Input string was not in a correct format.Couldn't store <555-555-5555> in PHONE_NUM Column. Expected type is Double.
It seems that the oledb command is expecting the column to be of type double (but, in fact, it is a string for phone numbers). I think I read somewhere that this happens because the command looks as the first couple of items in the column and determines what the type should be based off of that. Is there anyway to always read all values in as a string?
This is the code I am using:
Dim connection As OleDb.OleDbConnection
Dim command As OleDb.OleDbCommand
Dim adapter As New OleDb.OleDbDataAdapter
Dim connString As String = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + myFile + ";Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;"
Dim pgOne As String = "Page1$"
Dim pgTwo As String = "Page2$"
Dim selectOne As String = "SELECT * FROM [" & pgOne & "] WHERE COL1<>''"
Dim selectTwo As String = "SELECT * FROM [" & pgTwo & "]"
connection = New OleDb.OleDbConnection(connString)
Try
If connection.State = ConnectionState.Open Then
Else
connection.Open()
End If
command = New OleDb.OleDbCommand(selectOne, connection)
adapter.SelectCommand = command
adapter.Fill(ds, "Table1")
adapter.SelectCommand.CommandText = selectTwo
adapter.Fill(ds, "Table2")
Catch ex As OleDb.OleDbException
Finally
adapter.Dispose()
If (Not command Is Nothing) Then
command.Dispose()
End If
connection.Close()
End Try

Answer 1

You can get the tables to fill as strings in one of two ways. If you want to read them in as only a string you can add a part to your connection string that should read intermixed datatype columns as text. Alternatively force them into string types by reading in a header row as data. You can also use schemas to read in table definitions but I would need to find a little more info on that if these don't work for you.
The first option is simpler to do:
First change your connection string to add IMEX=1
'Add IMEX=1
Dim connString As String = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;IMEX=1;Data Source=" + myFile + ";Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;"
This should then provide you with String based columns on any datacolumns that have mixed data types in their rows.
Another way to do it is force the string column type by reading the header row as a datarow by specifying there is no header row in your connection string. You can then remove this after to have a string column of data.
'Add HDR=NO
Dim connString As String = "Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;HDR=NO;Data Source=" + myFile + ";Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;"
I will research a little more if these don't work for you.

Answer 2

As mentioned, I was unable to fix this so I just ended up creating a schema manually and formatting the data as it was bound.