File Password Problem/Corruption

[lesliefreeman]

Hello,

I have a filemaker database which has recently run into a major problem. It is a version 4 database, run on FMP server. The problem is that the database has stopped accepting passwords. It will not accept any of the passwords, master or otherwise. I have tried recovering the file with FMP several times, as well as running norton disk doctor on the machine several times. Neither process has yielded positive results. I have also tried password "peeking" type programs and they do not reveal any. I suspect that the password section of the DB file has become corrupted catastrphically.

To compond the problem, the client's tech stopped backing up the machine in september because of a miscommunication with his department and the one using the database. So my last backup works, although all the data is too old to be usable now.

Does anyone have and recommendations for ways to get the data out of the database even though the password portion is apparently corrupted? Or for that matter, any insight at all about what actions might work to get access to the data?

Here is the database info:

FMP v 4 database running on FMP server

Server machine is a beige powermac G3 running os 9

approx 2500 records

approx 40 mb

Thanks for your help'

Leslie

[Anatoli]

Contact FMI.

If you can prove the ownership of database they will extract the database passwords for you.

[kyle]

hi, leslie ! yes like anatoli said , fmi will be the best choice for you.

regards,

kyle

[lesliefreeman]

II did contact FMI already. They seemed to want to have nothing to do with an FMP 4 file and I cannot convert the file to FMP 5 because it will not accept passwords. FMI didn't seem very sympathetic to this problem. They basically told me to keep running recover over and over until it worked, which I tried 8 times.

So the long and short of it is that I am now looking for alternate solutions, using other programs to extract the data or something of that sort. Having a data recovery company do the work is also an option, if anyone can reccomend one.

-Leslie

[harryk]

II did contact FMI already. They seemed to want to have nothing to do with an FMP 4 file

This is strange..seems to me a monday-morning answer. They provide this service and cannot get away with this..

Lots of fm-databases are running in version 4. Is it in their terms of agreement they go beyond lower versions? Are version 5 users within some months also second-rate FM citizens?

I would give it another go. Try talking to someone else.

Apart from this, when the file is corrupted, they might have trouble recovering too.

Harryk

[Anatoli]

And you have to be real owner of the database also.