I have a corrupt FPT file that I cannot repair. The DBF that is associated with it has 52 records of information. I’ve pin-pointed where the corrupted fields are. I have a memo field with the name “mplacement”. There are exactly 4 so called “corrupted” records in the mplacement field. The corruption starts at record 18. Records 18 – 21 seem to be the corrupted ones. Records 1 – 17 seem to display information correctly. When I export the information from this DBF into an XLS, it only goes to record 17 and then quits, leaving the rest of the records out. When I open the FPT with a Hex Editor, the data displayed ends with record 17, like there is no more data.

Here’s the tricky part. When I open the application and go into 4 records (other than the 4 corrupted ones) and enter data into that mplacement memo field, it magically fixes the FPT and I don’t get the “Error 41, Memo file is missing or invalid” anymore. When I open the FPT back up in a Hex Editor, it shows me records 1 – 17 and my newly added data for the 4 entries at the bottom. I still can’t seem to recover all of the data from the memo field from records 18 – 52. I’ve got backups (at the time of corruption) of the DBF and FPT so I can try anything. Any help is much appreciated.