Can anyone help with this?
We set up an EpiData database with a notes file <filename>.not. The notes file appears to have corrupted and has taken the qualitative data from over 40 surveys with it. I was wondering if there was any way I could recover this or if I'll need to re-enter all the data manually into a word document.
To help work out what/where/if something went wrong with EpiData the breakdown of events is as follows:
* First ~45 surveys are entered without issue.
* From ~survey 45 when the notes file opened up it would not allow me to type unless I pressed enter a few times and then backspace (pressing enter once and backspace once would create space for two characters to be typed). It was cumbersome but the data was still going in alright.
* On closing the notes file whilst entering survey 60 the computer froze for a moment and EpiData was 'not responding' for about 20-30 seconds and then went back to normal functioning.
* The next time the notes file was opened the cursor appeared about halfway through the qualitative data for survey 19 and all data after there had been wiped. I opened the notes file in notepad to confirm this was the case.
Do you know of some recovery technique for this kind of problem?
Thanks,
Suzanna Vidmar Senior Research Officer Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Royal Children's Hospital Flemington Road Parkville Victoria 3052 Australia
telephone: +61 3 9345 6372 facsimile: +61 3 9345 6000 email: suzanna.vidmar@mcri.edu.au www.mcri.edu.au http://www.mcri.edu.au/
Hi --
It appears the note editor in EpiData (I'm using Version 3.1 270208; on Windows XP) has a limit of 64KB characters.
How much data are you trying to put in the notes?
Peter Geddes
geddes@ix.netcom.com
epidata-list@lists.umanitoba.ca wrote:
Can anyone help with this?
We set up an EpiData database with a notes file <filename>.not. The notes file appears to have corrupted and has taken the qualitative data from over 40 surveys with it. I was wondering if there was any way I could recover this or if I'll need to re-enter all the data manually into a word document.
To help work out what/where/if something went wrong with EpiData the breakdown of events is as follows:
First ~45 surveys are entered without issue.From ~survey 45 when the notes file opened up it would notallow me to type unless I pressed enter a few times and then backspace (pressing enter once and backspace once would create space for two characters to be typed). It was cumbersome but the data was still going in alright.
On closing the notes file whilst entering survey 60 thecomputer froze for a moment and EpiData was 'not responding' for about 20-30 seconds and then went back to normal functioning.
The next time the notes file was opened the cursor appearedabout halfway through the qualitative data for survey 19 and all data after there had been wiped. I opened the notes file in notepad to confirm this was the case.
Do you know of some recovery technique for this kind of problem?
Thanks,
Suzanna Vidmar Senior Research Officer Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Royal Children's Hospital Flemington Road Parkville Victoria 3052 Australia
telephone: +61 3 9345 6372 facsimile: +61 3 9345 6000 email: suzanna.vidmar@mcri.edu.au www.mcri.edu.au http://www.mcri.edu.au/
EpiData-list mailing list EpiData-list@lists.umanitoba.ca http://lists.umanitoba.ca/mailman/listinfo/epidata-list
Suzanna,
In my quick test, the largest note file I could create was a bit over 320,000 bytes. I could read this back with no problem. But Enter just would not let me add to the file. I doubt that your file was that big from only 40 subjects. I've never used .not files for qualitative data, but this is an interesting idea that gets around the limitation of string fields. .not files don't offer any functions for organizing this data, however.
If I'm right about your file size, it sounds like something else corrupted your file - for example, by introducing non-printable characters or through a disk error. I haven't used .not files enough to ever see any problem with them, but I've had lots of files corrupted by Windows over the years. When a file seems to disappear right in the middle, it is usually a disk error or other file corruption.
***The safest recovery is from a backup - either a routine system file backup or by creating your own EpiData backups. Backups can even be automated to some extent with EPIC, for example.***
In a MAC environment, TIme Machine backs up everything I do. My experience with system backups in a Windows or networked environment is not a happy one. We lost, randomly, about a quarter of our old LAN files when a corrupted system backup was the new starting point after a catastrophe in the server room. Your best bet is to save your own removable disks or have a backup folder for your project.
In principle, your hard drive may still contain a copy of the missing data in space that is not being used, but these days, it is probably quite difficult to recover yourself. 20 years ago it was quite straightforward.
Jamie Hockin Ottawa
On 2010-08-16, Suzanna wrote:
We set up an EpiData database with a notes file <filename>.not. The notes file appears to have corrupted and has taken the qualitative data from over 40 surveys with it. I was wondering if there was any way I could recover this or if I'll need to re-enter all the data manually into a word document.
Do you know of some recovery technique for this kind of problem?
What I would do in that situation is: 0. I would NEVER work on a data entry system and rely on data in one place or on one computer only.
1. Make sure to have back-up of all files including "corrupt ones".
2. Make a challenge test with the software. E.g. for entry and .not do as described by Jamie Hockin in a previous mail.
3. If you experience problems after 40 observations, then copy the .not file to some other location and rename, e.g. notes1-40.not notes41-79.not etc
4. For finding any backup copy or left over copy of a "pre-corrupt" file I would search my entire harddisk, including hidden files, for a text string that I knew was in the "pre-corrupt" file. E.g. parts of your observation 1 text. Several software tools will do this e.g. the crimson editor or total commander.
5. To recover the text from "pre-corrupt" or "corrupt" .not file I would use an editor such as "Crimson editor" or "pfe" or similar ascii oriented file. Then you would almost certainly towards the end of the file, find the cause of the problem - be that size of the .not file or some particular control sign.
regards Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association On 2010-08-16, Suzanna wrote:
We set up an EpiData database with a notes file<filename>.not. The notes file appears to have corrupted and has taken the qualitative data from over 40 surveys with it. I was wondering if there was any way I could recover this or if I'll need to re-enter all the data manually into a word document.
Do you know of some recovery technique for this kind of problem?
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