What could cause data to dissapear

[Cassetti]

We have several fmp database files, all inter-related, for each section of our company.

Our fmp server crashed today and after it checked the files and opened them up, we found that some of the most recent data dissapeared.

I understand the concept of exiting a field for data to be saved. But the entire record was not lost, and there were two emails generated by our fmp database sent out by the same user about an hour before the db crashed.

We have concluded that the user could not have been in two records at the same time, so the changes had to have been saved on at least one of the two records he was on. Both his records and two others from today have several fields missing.

Apparently strange things like this have happened in the past but this is the first time we've had proof that it was not someone accidentally deleting any data

[Vaughan]

Yeah, a server crash is a pretty common cause of data loss.

Beware that the files might be corrupted. Recover the damaged files and import the data into clones of the most recent known-good backups.

[Cassetti]

Well, we are a 3rd party data storage reseller/technical support. We have a wonderful Network Appliance server set up with snapshots of our entire database every hour, we can jump back several months if we want.

How can we check if the files are corrupt/damaged. I am aware that using the recover tool can fix problems temporarily, but is not recommended

[Genx]

Well there is no real way to be sure, but there'll almost always be something in the server logs to tell you when something went wrong.