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hheinrich

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Repair Utility for fpt/dbf/cdx files

Hi all,

do you have any experiences with such tools ? So far I am looking at:

Abri Technologies Recover Utility (http://www.abri.com/recover.html)
dSalvage (http://www.hallogram.com/dsalvge/memofile.html)
FoxFix 5.1 (http://www.hallogram.com/foxfix/index.html)

Are there any other tools around ?

For CDX file I can re-create the indexes, which is not great because everybody has to quit the application so that the reindex can gather exclusive access, but at least it's working ;-)

What are you doing when fpt files get corrupted ?

Is it possible to repair Fox tables online without exclusive access ?

Thanks
Hans
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hheinrich

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thanks.

of course we do nightly backups, but that won't help if the file gets broken at 23:30; Backup takes more than an hour, so we cannot do it during the day. And loosing a day of work is pretty tough. If there's a tool for a few bucks which can save two hours of work (say 20 people), then, of course we'll try that ;-)

Rgds
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And the reason that exclusive access is required to fix any of the problems you've mentioned is because these utilities do work to the whole file, and lastly require to write to the header to update it based on its work.  Assuming for a second that anyone else was in that file, if possible, it could never be sure what it was writing to that file header was correct with other users in there trying to work on the same data files and changing the statistics of those files.

I will compare it to that stupid Defrag utility under Windows 98.  If you've ever watched it start over after going 10-20%, this is exactly what is the case with trying to fix files in shared mode.  Once the system detects some kind of change has been made by another process, whether it be by a automated program or user, it must start over again to assure that it is doing its job correctly.  If Defrag gets so far and RealPlayer or Norton A/V kicks in to check for updates on the web and writes its activity to a log file, Defrag realizes this and must start over.
ahh ... the compare with defrag makes sense; thanks carl for the hint - that will make it easier to explain it!
I just thought I'd mention another poster who just had project file issues in VFP7 was able to successfully recover the memo field portion of the project stuff (<prjname>.pjt) successfully after he purchased the Abri Technologies Recover Utility (http://www.abri.com/recover.html) that you previously mentioned.  Since the .pjt file is really a .fpt file, this tool obviously gets the job done on memo field files.

See the third to the last response where he said he used it to recover:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20654303/project-file-invalid-error-with-vfp7.html
Avatar of Cyril Joudieh
I have written a utility in FoxPro 2.6 that repairs dbf and fpt. After the files are repaired, I open them exclusively for reindexing. What I do is delete the cdx file and build it all over again from scratch. On servers and after power failures I noticed that sometimes I have the last records appended to the table but they are empty because they were not closed before the power failure.

The files are corrupt anyway before the utility is used. So it's like exclusive access before they are repaired and ready for use.

I have written the utility as I mentioned in version 2.6. So if you like to have it I have send you and fxp which you call it with a parameter (dbf name).

So if there are no changes of the dbf structure between version 2.6 and the version you are using, I can send you the utility and you can test it.

Cyril
I have written a utility in FoxPro 2.6 that repairs dbf and fpt. After the files are repaired, I open them exclusively for reindexing. What I do is delete the cdx file and build it all over again from scratch. On servers and after power failures I noticed that sometimes I have the last records appended to the table but they are empty because they were not closed before the power failure.

The files are corrupt anyway before the utility is used. So it's like exclusive access before they are repaired and ready for use.

I have written the utility as I mentioned in version 2.6. So if you like to have it I have send you and fxp which you call it with a parameter (dbf name).

So if there are no changes of the dbf structure between version 2.6 and the version you are using, I can send you the utility and you can test it.