>original file is fine, i can access

Maybe I'm missing something, but if the message you are getting is really as stated, it isn't showing a filename, just the "\\." (path) -- so the problem might just be the way you call the file. IOW: you cannot open the memo file (FPT) directly but just by opening its DBF... If both DBFs have the same structure, you can just

USE dbf1 in 0
USE dbf2 in 0
SELECT dbf1
APPEND FROM dbf2

Of course, you get all the matching fields. If the field names don't match, the earlier suggestion of replace dbf1.memofld1 with dbf1.memofld1 + dbf2.memofld2 will work, or you could

SELECT dbf2
SCATTER MEMVAR MEMO
SELECT dbf1
REPLACE dbf1.memofld1 with dbf1.memofld1 + m.memofld2

The above works fine in a SCAN/ENDSCAN...

HTH

Rob