>>>Unfortunately the BAK and TBK files are only as good as the last structure change (or something like that); not each time it's opened.
>>>
>>>Any other ideas? My friend will have to retype for hours from old reports if there's not...
>>
>>Yes, you're right. The BAK/TBK files are created when you use MODIFY STRUCTURE not when a PACK is done.
>>
>>However, PACK does make a copy of the file without the deleted records and copies the temporary file back over the original one. If you have some type of deleted file recover utility then you may be able to get the previous version.
>>
>>If you don't already have one then your friend has a lot of work in the near future. I believe www.winternals.com offers an NT utility for this. If running on a Novell server, you might be able to get the files using Salvage (this was available in previous versions of Novell; not sure about 5.X).
>>
>>HTH.
>
>A little off the subject of this post, but related. On a Novell file system we give permissions to certain people down to the file level. Some have permission to read files in a directory, but there are 2 files in the directory that the people are allowed to update. So I instruct Novell to give this certain group Read/Modify on these to VFP tables. Well when the administrator does a PACK (which is done regularly) the VFP Pack command does what you describe above. The original files dissappears and is brought back with the records not marked for deletion. What happens is that Novell senses that the files are gone and guess what. So is the permissions for that group to Read/Modify those 2 files. Does anyone know a work around for this or a way to tell Novell to maintain the permission even if the file dissappears during a VFP pack?

There is nothing you can do about it.
The workaround is to create a subdirectory, move the VFP tables there and give users rights to that subdirectory.