>>Hi George,
>>
>>Thank for your help and advise. However, is there any way to remedy this
>>problem since VFP5a and 6 indicate it as 'not a database'. I can't open
>>it to purge the data. Please kindly advise so that I can access the
>>data again.
>Assure you have backups before you do anything!!
>Help me review this
>- A database contains tables
>-- Are you using 'use' or open database. If this is a table (DBF) then 'USE' it to open. USE MyBigTable EXCL
>--- If USE will not open the table it seems like a file header issue. It would be difficult to open such a large table in an editor to repair a damaged header. Norton may have a utility. If your DOS-DEBUG skills are good, you could correct the header by editing disklocations.
>-- I think USE will open if the EOF marker is embedded before the logical end of the table.
>If you can use it, and browse it - you can copy it in sections to other tables.
>Look at the ATTRIB in it's directory
>what happens with a lowlevel open:h=fopen('MyBigTable.dbf',0) - is an error returned?
>Tricks if you can USE:
>copy structure to NewBigTable
>USE NewBigTable
>append next 100000 from MyBigTable
>or
>COPY ALL TO MyBigTable2
>Let us know how it goes.
>SANDISK?

Hi,

Thank for the help and suggestion. However, vfp5 cannot open
by reportiing of 'not a database file'.

Opening the file using fopen is okay and the last byte of the
file is ETX. What do I do after that ?

I had managed to use vfpview to export the
data to a text file. I can't import it back to the
dbf file again as it will again give the file size of
2G again.

So, what is the better way to recover the file back
when I hit th same problem again. thank you.