chkdsk has made one of my files 0 kb in size

Hello,

Chkdsk has just done something on reboot and now the size of my Quickbooks file is 0. I don't have a QBB file and only have the transaction log file. The guys at Intuit tell me that all they'll need is the QBW file - corrupt or uncorrupted - and they should be able to recover the data.

Is there any way of going in there and recovering the data? I have already tried Get Data Back and it still shows the file as 0 size. I'm afraid I'll need to use some kind of program to grab the file based on file headers and footers. But I'm hoping there is some other easier way...

Thanks
C

 

Look on the root of your C: drive for any files with a .CHK extension. They'll have a number for the name such as 0001.chk.

I can't tell you how to utilize any of those for your purpose but perhaps the intuit folks have an idea. Opening them with Notepad wouldn't likely do any good since they're probably data files that are encoded.

Don't you keep backups of your important data? I thought QuickBooks would do that automatically.

 

Ahh... cool. So windows would have placed a .CHK onto the root drive. I only have the Data drive, not the Boot drive. So, I should go back to the client and grab the other boot drive and the CHK file should be on it?

 

Yes, they'll be found on the root of the system drive.

Good luck.

I must add, I have often cautioned against letting chkdsk run without first backing up critical data. I have seen too many cases like yours. Even when it tries to run automatically, you can always decline by pressing any key. It has been known to completely hose a system to the point of being unbootable. It did that once to me and made me a believer. Running it from a command prompt without any switches added is safe. If it finds faults and report them, backup your data and THEN run chkdsk /r. Next time.