# Help view/extract/convert .db file



## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

Hello I have a person who asked to open / view / edit / extract information from a .db file then problem is that I have tried many third party apps and nothing.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks.


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## OBP (Mar 8, 2005)

Do you or they know what created the file?
Have you tried Access?


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

yes i tried access and nothing, i guess it's a paradox db file but i am not 100% sure


thanks


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## cristobal03 (Aug 5, 2005)

Have you tried MS Works?

Here are some other options. MS Works seemed the most likely, as it's somewhat common.

chris.

[edit]
Didn't realize Oracle was on that list. Have you tried that? Though if it was an Oracle DB--well, I imagine you'd know if that was the case. Oracle isn't really something that you'd have to search for or wonder if it was used; it's a pretty enterprise system.
[/edit]


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

Hello trying to catch up on this topic, does anyone knows how to open a .db file?

My file is called "COE002.DB" need to open it badly  

I recently got MS Works, specifically which module should I try with?

Thanks.


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## jhand (Sep 13, 2005)

You need a conversion program. This one is $19.95 and will convert a paradox .db file to access or whatever you want.

The site is: http://www.processtext.com/abcprdox.html


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

jhand said:


> You need a conversion program. This one is $19.95 and will convert a paradox .db file to access or whatever you want.
> 
> The site is: http://www.processtext.com/abcprdox.html


hi thanks for responding, I have just downloaded a DEMO version

ran it, tried to open two .DB files

and got following error msg

"Invalid database file"

Thx in advanced.


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## jhand (Sep 13, 2005)

You may not have any options left. If that utility won't open it, it's not Paradox or it's corrupted.

Have you tried opening the file with notepad or wordpad and browse through it looking for a text tag for what program it was created in. 

Also try opening Excel then select File-Open and navigate to where the file is and select All Files in the File type area and click that .db file. If excel can't convert it, then there's nothing else I know to try.


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

jhand said:


> You may not have any options left. If that utility won't open it, it's not Paradox or it's corrupted.
> 
> Have you tried opening the file with notepad or wordpad and browse through it looking for a text tag for what program it was created in.
> 
> Also try opening Excel then select File-Open and navigate to where the file is and select All Files in the File type area and click that .db file. If excel can't convert it, then there's nothing else I know to try.


Hi, I was able to see something using NOTEPAD and WORDPAD

Here I pase some from the beginning of this file



> !PERM join SYS.SYSTABLE where table_id=SYSCOLPERM.
> table_id),(select table_name from SYS.SYSTABLE where table_id=SYSCOLPERM.
> table_id),(select column_name from SYS.SYSCOLUMN where table_id=SYSCOLPERM.
> table_id and column_id=SYSCOLPERM.column_id)from SYS.SYSCOLPERM5


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## jhand (Sep 13, 2005)

This doesn't help.

Did you see any more below it?


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

Basically there are two .db files one is almost 13mb and the other one is almost 500kb so I'm opening right now the small one, is there a way I can send it to you?

Thx.


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## jhand (Sep 13, 2005)

The problem is, if it is just more of what you pasted before then it looks like it is just a dump of an SQL database. 

You would need to know where it came from to do any justice to getting the data back somewhere where you could read it.


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## kiwiguy (Aug 17, 2003)

There are at least 16 different programs that create ".db" files, none of them will have the same file structure.

Unless you know what program created it, you will not be able to easily find a solution, but you seem to have eliminated the possibility that it was made bt Paradox.

Where did it come from, that may give a clue as to what is needed to open it?


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

Yes I think you're right.

At the same folder where these files are located, there are also some other file extensions, e.g. COE002.EXE is what I think the main app that could open .db files in a different way, the problem is that when I try to execute it I get this message.

"Cannot find PBRTF030.DLL" now I thought that this could be related to a OS version that I'm using so I decided to run it from Win98SE but it did the same.

Thanks/


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

kiwiguy said:


> There are at least 16 different programs that create ".db" files, none of them will have the same file structure.
> 
> Unless you know what program created it, you will not be able to easily find a solution, but you seem to have eliminated the possibility that it was made bt Paradox.
> 
> Where did it come from, that may give a clue as to what is needed to open it?


Basically this comes from a CD from one customer where we need to explore/extract/manipulate this data.

There are some folders but there's just one 
"IRACG\ACGIS\COE002"

Where a .EXE file and two .db files (12mb and 500k) located.


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## kiwiguy (Aug 17, 2003)

It looks like (from the PBRTF030.DLL error) that you need PowerBuilder installed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerbuilder
That is a sizeable (and expensive) application....


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## jacven (Aug 20, 2004)

kiwiguy said:


> It looks like (from the PBRTF030.DLL error) that you need PowerBuilder installed.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerbuilder
> That is a sizeable (and expensive) application....


Thanks all for your time.

I will let you all know if I have success in the future.


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