Good to hear you got your data back.

A good Back Up policy will hedge against the risk of PC problems (like you
had) and also protect against fire or theft.
I keep my Moneyfile.mny on my C: drive and the working backups on my D:
drive (both HDDs).
Within the folder D:\ Money I have 7 backups called: 1 - Monday.mbf
2 - Tuesday.mbf 3 - etc (uncompressed).
When closing Money, I change the file to be backed up to 'Today' (whatever
that is) thro 'Browse' before hitting 'Back Up'.
I don't back up to CD-R but I do copy the 7 files in my D:\Money folder onto
a USB pendrive kept separate & secure.


teabag




"Bryan" <Bryan[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:635582CE-2F3A-4314-8C4F-52042FB37F3F[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Great find! Be sure and look to make sure the transactions from the last
session before your problem really are there.

Is your hard disk running out of space?

Criteria for backups:

1) Have diversity of medium (floppies, CDs, flash drives, hard drives), form
(.MBF, .MNY, hardcopy reports if need be), and location (multiple machines,
take a CD to the safe deposit box every now and then).

2) Make sure your backups have backups.

3) Periodically test your backups to be sure they really are.

"Bryan" <Bryan[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:635582CE-2F3A-4314-8C4F-52042FB37F3F[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Thanks Anna...

I already checked my other hard drive - I use it exclusively for media
files, so it was pretty easy to tell it hadn't moved here.

Any file "moving" was done without my action - remember, the file
disappeared right when I closed it and, unlike other programs, money files
are not actively saved by the user (unless the user really tries). It's more
passive - the program replaces the file over the file that it had opened.

I had tried most all of what you recommeded. See my most recent other post
to see how I found the file and fixed the problem - may be useful in the
future for you.

Thanks

"Anna" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks for the help. Here's what I did...

On Canakiwi and Dick Watson's advice, I searched for files last changed
during the timeframe that I "lost" my money file. FOrtunately, I knew that
timeframe to within 15 minutes (but within a day would have worked fine
also). I also limited the search to files > 1mb

I got a big list, but in the list was a 20mb file called: ~of195.tmp.

It was located in this directory: DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\<user> \LOCAL
SETTINGS/TEMP

I copied that file to my desktop and renamed it to xxx.mny then opened it
with
Money.

Taa Daa - it was my missing file.

Thanks all for the help and the ideas. And Cal, you can be sure that I will
be backing up my stuff better.

Bryan

"Bryan" wrote:

- quote -

Just some thoughts here.....
Could you inadvertently have moved it to another drive.... And when you
searched for the *.mny file you only searched your local hard drive
(c)?

Did you run a disk check on your hard drive? I've seen Windows move
data stored on a bad sector to a good sector to recover it when the
disk check identified the bad sector.

Also, do you have any kind of program like Norton's Unerase Wizard? I
have recovered several files using this program in the past. Not often,
but worth a try.

One last thing..... I teach adult classes and often have many people
working off of one of our servers. Periodically, an important file or
folder disappears. When we track down the file (usually moved to
another location), sometimes the file extension or file name has been
partially changed. Therefore a search did not find it. We almost always
find it by having our whole class look in folders in the same directory
or their subfolders. It doesn't SOUND like your file was moved..... but
a manual search might be worth the effort. I'm just curious... where
was your file located? My Documents? Money folder? Desktop?



Dick Watson wrote:
- quote -

An unfortunate aspect of the M05 and previous backup code when set for
auto-backup. Whenever you get in these positions, step 1 is to make copies
of what you do have before things go from bad to worse.

"Bryan" <Bryan[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C132DCE1-5CA9-4EED-A380-9E2DBA7B6B20[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I only use one money file, and it has one backup file. The file I
inadvertently opened when I was looking for my regular money file apparenty
wrote to the same backup file. I clearly didn't have that set up to write to
different money files. Hadn't been a problem in the past because I only have
one active money file.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

I used to keep bi-weekly backups religiously. I had slacked recently - go
figure. I can track down my most recent - probably 3-4 months old. But I
still wonder why, and how, a file woudl just disappear. That seems really
weird.

Might I be able to rescue the file forensically? I mean I have no idea

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

Thanks. I had checked mcafee quarantine. No luck. Didn't try to look for
files modified within the time window - that's a good idea. Thanks

"CanaKiwi" wrote:

- quote -

And of roughly the expected size.

"CanaKiwi" <john_hastie[at]nospamhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:OQb1AVJyGHA.1340[at]TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Check your McAfee options and logs. Perhaps the file has been quarantined
for whatever reason. I do not know why it would but worth a look.

Another idea. Perhaps the file extension changed for some reason. Try
looking for files modified in a limited timeframe around when you made your
last change.

Sorry, but I'm out of ideas.

"Bryan" <Bryan[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:092D1155-38BA-4260-B0F5-183A053DE134[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Good questions.

No virus. I run mcafee, which is managed online, is up to date and enabled.
I did look for hidden files, and checked all drives. I agree with you that
"In my experience files do not simply go missing," which is the biggest
conundrum here.

I did not check system folders. I'll try that when I get home. But for it
to be there, it would have had to be moved by something other than me. Same
if the attributes had changed. All I did was open the file as usual (no
problem), enter some transactions, then close the file as usual. ALl went
normally. Then, two minutes after closing, found some things I hadn't
entered, so I opened Money again. Then, it couldn't find the file (and
neither could I). Wasn't even in my recycle bin.

Big changes to my system recently have been the installation of a more
comprehensive McAfee suite (they pushed it to me - I had been using only
Virusscan, but they've now loaded and enabled spamblocker, firewall, adware
blockers, etc.) Since they did this, I have not been able to access my ISPs
SMTP server, which may be coincidence, but the problems did show up at the
same time.

Another change was the installation of recent windows security upgrades.
That has affected certain functionality, but not in ways that a user like me
would notice (except, perhaps, more friction online), but nothing as radical
as losing a file.

I keep thinking if I keep looking, I'll find the file somewhere - like when
I lose my car keys at home. Only in this case, I'm 100% sure that losing the
keys was not a result of a direct action I took with the computer.

Thanks!

"CanaKiwi" wrote:

- quote -

yes, and for .mbf - found a lot of files (older archived files, and a file I
had abandonded 12 months ago when I had a different problem), but not the
file I had been using.

This is very strange, because I use money frequently, and I've been using
the same file consistently.

I've had files corrupt on me, but never up and disappear.

Thx

"---Fitz---" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Bryan wrote:

- quote -

It doesn't help me, but it may help others who would be in a pickle
if their hard drive crashed, and who could learn from your
experience. And you have probably already backed up other important
files from your computer after this event.

I guess you are sure you did not burn a backup to CDR or copy it on
to one of your USB flash drives. Maybe you have a floppy backup.
Even those work a lot of the time, tho they are the least reliable
common medium.

In my experience files do not simply go missing. You have not described a
crash of any sort so it is unlikely it is hardware related which could be
another possible reason. Perhaps the file attributes have changed or it has
been moved rather than deleted? Did you search System folders and hidden
files/folders when you searched for the file? Any other strange things
happening on your computer?

Do you have a VIRUS?

"Bryan" <Bryan[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F439A538-9DC4-4516-9671-81D57E95A3B3[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Or, I could keep my records on paper. Wouldn't have happened then either.

You are right... I should have created multple, redundant backups in various
places so that when the software bombed, I'd have a hedge. I thought I had
done this well enough, but clearly not. Does that help you? Doesn't help
me fix my current pickle.

What I need now, if anybody has them to offer, are ideas/suggestions from
people who might seen this problem before (in Money or some other program) as
to whether I might be able to find the data file in some secret place, or
could this be a known bug with a solution, or perhaps can I retrieve the file
off the disk forensically?

I have never in 15 years - even from klugey MS products - had a file just
disappear when I closed it. Only 2 minutes passed between when I closed the
file and when I tried to repoen it (and couldn't find it). The file just
vaporized.

Thx


"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

XP Pro. SP2.

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

What OS was involved?

I've used every version of Money for at least some period of time and have
never seen this.

"Bryan" <Bryan[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F439A538-9DC4-4516-9671-81D57E95A3B3[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Bryan wrote:

- quote -

You could name the backups whatever you wanted. If you made the
backup filenames the same, one would overwrite the other.

So, yes, I've looked for these files on both my hard drives. Not there. The
file I'm seeking is probably in shreds and fragments on my C drive. My
backup files, across both hard drives, were both over-written - I expected
(foolishly) money to create a new backup file when I opened a new (or older)
money file, rather than overwriting the old.

What I mean is, I didn't think Money would write every active file to the
same backup - it seems it should have a separate backup file for each active
money file. Not so.

This is what they call learning the hard way. I'm most likely now to quit
using money at all.

Money 06 and 07 have their own overhead problems that I'm unwilling to deal
with. I recognize my short-sightedness in not creating hard backups. Since
I have two hard drives (and use both for backups) I had 'coverage' if one
hard drive failed.

However, I did not have coverage for my file totally disappearing and then
me overwriting the backups in one fell swoop. I honestly didn't expect to
close the file and have it disappear into the ether.

Have any of you experienced this before?

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -