Thanks to all who've replied! Unfortunately, I don't really understand a lot
of the advice given. I'll share it with the computer guy though, so
hopefully he'll be able to help me further. I did try to copy the floppy to
other computers, to no avail. And just now I just spent $40 on BadCopy Pro
trying to fix the corrupt backup file only to get the same message when I
tried to open the supposedly fixed recovered file: 'QDATA Backup d1.mbf' is
corrupted or is not a Money backup file. ... Aaaaargh!

Hello,

If the files are lost there is still a chance to bring them back. For
this purpose data recovery tools might be implemented. Among them the
most powerful are imho Active[at] Undelete and Uneraser(DOS). these are
truly mighty utils that never failed me and were able to restore data.

http://www.active-undelete.com/

http://www.uneraser.com/

In microsoft.public.money, Cal Learner-- MVP wrote:

- quote -

Or better yet, pull that original drive, and clone it to a new drive
on another system. Move the clone back to the regular box, and try
to recover files from the original drive on either box.

In microsoft.public.money, Scoop wrote:

- quote -

What I should have said is to clone the current disk, and then make
the clone the boot disk by moving it to the primary controller
input, and move the clone to the secondary. Try to recover from the
original drive that is then the D (or whatever) drive. Do you think
that has possibilities?



- quote -

Actually, I wouldn't clone the disk. Doing so will probably only make
a good "copy" of the the intact files on the system and the state of
the system. I don't think it will do anything for deleted data that
may still be recoverable. Even so called sector-by-sector cloning
utilities don't usually capture data in sectors the system thinks are
"empty". If the files are actually on the system, it's just a matter
of finding them (obviously).

If they have in fact been deleted your only hope, other than getting
the backups from your floppies, of recovering anything is using an
undelete or file recovery utility. The first thing you should do is
simply stop using the system as much as possible. Definately don't
move files/folders around install/uninstall any s/w, etc. What
Operating System are you running? Do you know what file system the
partition is formated with? Are there multiple partitions (drives)?
If so, have you searched all of them?

When you say the floppies are "corrupt" what exactly do you mean? In
other words, what message(s) do you get when you try to access them,
etc?

Cal's suggestion with the floppies is definately worth trying. If at
all possible, try to do it on another system.

In microsoft.public.money, "Desperate Money User" <Desperate Money
User[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

- quote -

Regarding the floppies, here is what I would try on a different
computer, or on the same computer after you have cloned the hard
drive. Do it for each set of floppies. You won't be able to mix some
files from one set and a file from another set.

I would copy each file from the backup floppies of a set to the same
directory/folder. This will give you an extra backup and will
separate any problems of reading the floppy media from some other
potential problem. This is not the common way, and it is not
usually necessary. But especially if it is my only backup, I would
consider the copy to hard disk step.

The files will be named *d1.mbf, *d2.mbf, *d3.mbf and so on.

In WE, double-click the *d1.mbf file. That should launch Money and
start the restore. When Money prompts for the next diskette, click
OK.

If you are restoring directly from floppy diskette, you can insert
the first floppy and double click the *d1.mbf file. Change
diskettes when prompted.

You will have a chance to change the location or filename for where
the restored data will go. If this is a different computer, it is
especially good to browse to a location. The old location may not
even exist.

If you find that you fail to copy only the files of one floppy of
one of the sets, you might want to consider a file recovery service
for that floppy. Do not consider a program that tries to make
corrections to the flakey floppy itself. If you let a program write
to one of those floppies, it will probably be unrecoverable.

In microsoft.public.money, "Desperate Money User" <Desperate Money
User[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

- quote -

Check the Recycle Bin.

Also, consider cloning that hard drive as it exists right now. Do as
*little* as possible on the computer before that. You might be able
to then search the drive with a un-delete program. It seems like a
long shot, but it could pay off.

On the floppies, write-protect them all with the little sliders now.
Then see if you can copy the contents of the floppies to the hard
drives of other computers. Sometimes drive-to-drive variations will
let one drive read a floppy that another can not.

I had a computer guy work on my computer and asked him to consolidate folders
because we had folders all over the place and I wanted them all in a
centralized location. As a result, Money can't find my files. I tried doing
a search for *.mbf & *.mny files to no avail. The files that show up are
EMPTY!! AND as luck would have it, BOTH my backup floppies are corrupt!!
Can anyone help me find my files? The computer guy insists that he deleted
nothing. I'm using Microsoft Money 2001. Any help would be GREATLY
appreciated as we're talking about 8 years of finanacial data down the tubes!!