FileMaker Pro 4 - Export for SQL database

[Tenmiles]

Hello there,

I've just registered for the site and looked around a bit to see if I could find anything pertaining to my circumstance, but haven't located an answer yet, so I wanted to make this post.

We have an oooold iMac (G3) which is running OS 8.6 and FileMaker Pro 4.1v1

(the rest of our office is entirely a Microsoft shop)

We have some years' worth of old records still stored in FileMaker on that box, though it is not in active use. The machine now exists as an archive, essentially, and is only accessed once in a while, to look up and print out some old records (though it is always on).

For the past 7 years or so, we've used an in-house custom app as a front end to an SQL database instead.

Now, this old iMac is on its last legs. This thing makes me wake up in cold sweats at night. If it dies and we haven't got a proper backup.... it gives me the horrors just thinking about it.

What we want to do is to export the data into some form which we can then make an SQL database from, and have that running on our database server, where it'll get regular backups, and be easier to access and query and manage.

Once hypothesis which was posed is that we would need to upgrade FileMaker to a newer version in order to be able to export the data in an SQL-ready format; but (supposedly?) we can't upgrade FileMaker on the OS which we currently have on that machine.

We would need to first upgrade to OS 9 or 10, and then upgrade FileMaker, and then export the data.

I'm making my appeal to the experts here, because I have almost no personal experience with FileMaker.

Does anyone have any suggestions for this situation?

[comment]

First and foremost, backup your .fp3 file/s on external media (make sure they are closed before you copy them). These files can be read by any higher version of Filemaker, incl. the current v.11.

As for exporting, I believe any plain-text format (tab-separated or CSV) will do. Or use the Merge format (basically CSV with field names in the first row). Make sure to show all records before exporting and include all fields in the export order.

[Tenmiles]

Thanks, comment!

I'm hoping that the CD drive in that iMac is still capable of burning a disc, but we might just try to back them up to an external USB drive.

I'd actually like to clone the whole HD before we do anything, in case it all goes sideways once we start mucking around with it.

Here's another questions:

If the .fp3 files can be read by any higher version of FileMaker, can that also include a cross-platform transition?

For instance, if we were to set up a Windows version of Filemaker on another machine, would these backup files still be able to be imported to it?

[comment]

Tif we were to set up a Windows version of Filemaker on another machine, would these backup files still be able to be imported to it?

Yes. The files are platform agnostic.