Recovering Filmaker 5 file

Hi,

I have next to no experience with Filemaker Pro, but I need to get
some data from an old Filemaker 5 file. When I tried opening the file
in FM 7.0, it tried to convert the file to 7.0 format. It appeared to
be working but the final message was:

"File Conversion could not be completed. This file seems to be
damaged."

Is there anything else to try to recover the file? I can try to find
someone with FM 5.0 to try opening it, but do y'all think that would
help? I've done a search on recovering corrupt FM files, but am not
sure what to try.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Sue

Re: Recovering Filmaker 5 file

"essuh1" schreef in bericht
news:1191595809.095902.168340@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have next to no experience with Filemaker Pro, but I need to get
> some data from an old Filemaker 5 file. When I tried opening the file
> in FM 7.0, it tried to convert the file to 7.0 format. It appeared to
> be working but the final message was:
>
> "File Conversion could not be completed. This file seems to be
> damaged."
>
> Is there anything else to try to recover the file? I can try to find
> someone with FM 5.0 to try opening it, but do y'all think that would
> help? I've done a search on recovering corrupt FM files, but am not
> sure what to try.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sue
>

This topic was covered just this week. I wrote on a similar topic the
following:

Good practice is to save a clone from your file as soon as you start
working. Then when something happenes you have an unused and undamaged
clone. Recover is only realy there to recover your data. It is not intended
to keep on working with the file. It may seem like the file functions after
a recover, but error may still be there and they might re-appear at any
time. If you don't have a fresh clone, you are left with an untrustworthy
file. You just might try and work with the recovered file. But don't be
surprised when it crashes in a major way along the line. An other solution
would ofcourse be to rebuild your file from scratch. Safe a clone (just in
case) and import the data from the recovered file. I know that almost nobody
works like this (storing virgin clones), but it is the only option to be
completely safe.

For you the best way would to find a version 5, recover the file with it.
Then recreate the whole database in 7 and import the data from the recovered
file.
You might get away with recovering and converting, but some error might stay
there and crash your solution sometime sooner or later.

Keep well, Ursus

Re: Recovering Filmaker 5 file

In article <1191595809.095902.168340@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
essuh1 wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have next to no experience with Filemaker Pro, but I need to get
> some data from an old Filemaker 5 file. When I tried opening the file
> in FM 7.0, it tried to convert the file to 7.0 format. It appeared to
> be working but the final message was:
>
> "File Conversion could not be completed. This file seems to be
> damaged."
>
> Is there anything else to try to recover the file? I can try to find
> someone with FM 5.0 to try opening it, but do y'all think that would
> help? I've done a search on recovering corrupt FM files, but am not
> sure what to try.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sue

I have FileMaker 6 on my machine, which should be able open it or
recover it without converting to .fp7 format. If the database is not too
big to emil, you can send it to me and I will se what I can do with it.

If it is too big to email you can send it on a CD.

See below for instructions for sending email to me.

--
For email, change to
Bill Collins