Issues opening older DWG files

[Anonymous]

Hello.
We have been given a large number of 3.5" floppy disks containing dwg files.
We have copied the contents where possible to a Hard Drive, and opened them using notepad to establish the version number of a number of the files and these vary between AC1009 and AC1015. The file dates fall between late 1990's and early '00's.

When we try to open them using the latest version of AUTOCAD we see errors that either say the file is "Invalid" or that the file "requires recovery" (see attached). Whne we try to recover files, we see a message saying that the file has been recovered with varius errors fixed and some objects erased.  When we try to open the recovered file, the drawings seem incomplete or do not look "right" according to an engineer who is experienced in using CAD software.

We have read a number of forum posts that indcate problems due to keeping files on magnetic media for long periods. We understand this may be the reason for some file "corruption". Is it the case that the latest version of AutoCAD should be able to open old dwg files without issue? Or would we have more success using an older version closer to the original version when opening the files?

Many thanks in advance.

[Kent1Cooper]

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@Anonymous wrote:

.... Is it the case that the latest version of AutoCAD should be able to open old dwg files without issue? ....

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Yes.  It looks like a simple matter of corruption on the storage media.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> problems due to keeping files on magnetic media for long periods

That would also be my first idea, 20 years on a floppy disk is imho far from safe.

>> Is it the case that the latest version of AutoCAD should

>> be able to open old dwg files without issue?

In theory yes, but you might upload some of the files and we can try that on our systems.

- alfred -

[maratovich]

Attach an example of your file.

[Anonymous]

Hi.

Thanks for the replies. I have attached an example file that required recovery in Auto CAD, but still doesn't look correct when opened.
Any advice or further troubleshooting is most welcome.

[RobDraw]

What is it supposed to "look" like?

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> but still doesn't look correct when opened

It can be opened on my side too.

To verify if it is complete or not we need to know how it should look like.

When I look the lower right side of the drawing there is a path and filename shown as text, maybe that was an XRef and you are missing the content of the XRef.

- alfred -

PS: Files were saved with AutoCAD 11 or 12 (not 2011, not 2012) or the first release of AutoCAD LT

[Anonymous]

The file attached here is an example of one that opens without need for recovery and looks how one of our drawings should do, if this helps to illustrate our issue.

[RobDraw]

That file required recovery on my end but it does look like it's missing an XREF.

I think you might be out of luck in recovering those files.

[Anonymous]

Hi. Thanks for taking a look Rob. Would it be possible to show a screen snip or message that indicates that XREF data may be missing, please?

[pendean]

AFAIK whatever you think might be missing from these files means little/nothing since all any of us can do now is open and see what is in these files now.

RECOVER here in 2019 says it only fixed 9 objects but deleted nothing in the 70-2-434 dwg file I opened.

I suspect you either have yet to find the top file all of these XREF into it, or the content was missing when these files where saved.

There are no forensic methods to recover whatever used to be on there. the appear to be what they are today, flaws or no flaws.

[RobDraw]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi. Thanks for taking a look Rob. Would it be possible to show a screen snip or message that indicates that XREF data may be missing, please?

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[TheCADnoob]

I have had good luck with retrieving files from floppys before, but it was just luck. The disks were stored in a stable environment. That said it looks like you  might have a myriad of issues aside from the drawing storage and recovery. 

The drawing i opened had two drawing in a single drawing at two different scales. Whats worse is they appear to be two different disciplines. The file corruption is just the beginning of the problems if the rest of the drawings are like this. This looks like quite a mess. Good luck with this venture. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for taking a look at this (and indeed everyone who's contributed). 

It looks like the disks contain a mixed bag of files in terms of usability. I'm actually in an IT department and we're not experts in AutoCAD at all, so we aren't sure what is normal or not for some of the files. 

Thanks again.