An open sales database running on an XServer got replaced or annihilated! Was 90Mb file with 8500 records, many layouts.

Now it's 12K, zero records, 2 layouts named "Layout#1" and "Layout#2" and 3 fields. When I tried to open it later, it was damaged.

So I tried to recover it, Filemaker errored "Sales.fp7 was not created by Filemaker or is severely damaged and cannot be opened."

What happened? Any ideas?

What exactly do you mean the file was "open and running on an XServe"?

It doesn't sound like you're running FileMaker Server.

Start looking for backups.... you do have backups, right?

It sounds like you were opening the file using operating system file sharing, not FileMaker Server.

If so - this the result you can expect. Your files WILL be destroyed. Do not ever open FileMaker files that are stored on a file server.

Sorry, Filemaker Server 8.5, installed on an XServe computer, was hosting a few databases, working perfectly for years. The database was suddenly not available for login, and when I opened that database in Filemaker Pro, it was empty as I described above.

I was able to restore from a backup, but my customer is concerned with what happened, and I don't have an explanation for them. Was it corrupted, hacked, replaced, I'm not sure.

Has anyone seen this happen? Any ideas why?

Never saw that happen before.

What about the condition of the HD? Is it full?

I know that later versions of server keep an Access log, does Server8.5?

Please post anything you find.

Was the file accessible using normal file sharing? Are you running any backup utilities?

The files were not available through regular file sharing.

There is another guy (high integrity consultant) who manages the server machine - I think he uses Retrospect to back up the backup folder to another drive. Hard drive has 116 Gb available, so that's good.

There is s good FM Server log - I will post when I can access it. This may be the key to understanding what happened.

Which version of FM Server -- there is no version 8.5. There is FMS 8.0. Unless the server is really running a copy of FileMaker Pro 8.5 and sharing peer-to-peer?