application crashing, need to Recover

[NHuser]

I've been using Filemaker for 15 years and currently have 5.0 Windows version. I use a Dell PC with a Pentium III processor and 256MB of RAM. I daily use about 10 different relational databases and one is 100MB in size. I continuously use my Filemaker databases for 8 to 10 hours every day.

Recently, especially in the 100MB database, but also in a couple of my smaller databases, I have had to Recover them (3 times in the last 2 weeks for the 100MB database, and once each for 3 of my smaller ones). This had almost never happened in the past (except maybe 2 or 3 times in the last 10 years). Just prior to having to Recover them (and it always shows no records or data skipped or lost after the Recover is completed), I had gotten an error window that said something like "you have made an error in the Filemaker application, all previously unsaved data will be lost" and it gives a grayed "close" button as well as a grayed "ignore?" button. It doesn't allow a the "ignore" option, and after I choose "close" it quits the Filemaker application . This has been happening every couple of days for the last couple of weeks. Then, when I go to reopen the database it tells me I need to Recover it, which I do and it works fine until I get the same crashing error window 2 or 3 times again (over the course of a week or so)

Does anybody know what the problem might be? Suggestions? Is there a chance that one day my database will be unrecoverable and I'll lose 15 years of data?

I'd appreciate any help or suggestions anyone can give if you've had similar problems and (hopefully) solutions. Thanks.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

The very first time that the database crashed and that you ran the recover you should have exported ALL the data. Get that data out of the file now before anything else happens. Chances are the data are corrupt, but they can be cleaned. If the file structure dies, you will have to send the files to FMI for industrial strength recover with no guarantees.

Old Advance Man

[NHuser]

Thanks for your help, will do (and I'll keep my fingers crossed)

NHuser