>>Whenever I have a user with hosed data, it always seems to be the memo file that is bad. Consequently:
>>
>>1. Is there a way to recover data from a corrupt memo file without using a 3rd party application?
>>
>>2. If not, is there a reasonably priced application? (I have need of this 1-2x a year for customers without valid backups.)
>>
>>3. Is there an alternative to fragile memo files? Does anyone roll their own memo fields using 250 character fields and pasting them together, or some similar solution?
>>
>>Thanks.

The problem with corrupt memo files is usually in the header that gets the wrong record count when the file is updated with an append blank but the data is not actually saved because of a crash. Fox calculates the size of the fpt file based on record count and if this does not match the dbf header it won't open the file. I have a fox 2.6 screen that will fix the memo files and check to see which ones need fixing. This screen solves 80 - 90% of the memo corruption problems. I can send it to you if you like. Email me at home, blucas@softoptions.com. That is where the files are. My screen may have a few function calls to some of my own procedures but it should be easy to remove them to get things working. The key is the low level functions to update the dbf header.