Corrupted keybackup

[Kenneth Brody]

On 6/10/2011 4:13 PM, Richard Kreiss wrote:
> I added 2 fields to the end of a file. One zero length and the other 5,.0.
>
> Some of the records are ok and some are corrupted.  It appears that most of
> the bad records are in the middle of the file.

That is most likely caused by one of two things:

1 - The restructure crashed in the middle, and they kept using the file 
anyway, or

2 - Someone removed the lockfile while the restructure was going on, and 
updated/added records to the file.

My bet would be on (2).  Too many trigger-happy "just remove the lockfile" 
people.

> Any backups they may have had from the time the fields were added are now
> gone.

How long ago were the fields added?  Why do they no longer have any backups?

[...]
> Any suggestion as to how I can straighten this out will be greatly
> appreciated.

Most likely, the "bad" records are all grouped together.  The records at the 
beginning of the file match the map, and the records at the end of the file 
match the map.  You need to find where the "bad" records (ie: those records 
that don't match the map) begin and end.  Then, temporarily put into place a 
map which matches those records (do _not_ do this within filePro, as you 
will trigger another restructure, which will just make things worse), and 
copy those records to an archive.  Then, put the "real" map back, delete the 
"bad" record range, and then import the archive.

Oh, and I hope I don't really need to point this out, but make a backup (or 
two or three) before doing anything else with this file.

If needed, I'm sure there are people on this list whom you can hire to 
recover whatever data is still in the file.

-- 
Kenneth Brody