FAQ: Fixing a corrupted Construction Library file

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Your Construction Library data is (by default) stored in the file C:\Program Files\SDA\SHW.EMD. Every tenth time you use the program a copy of this file is made, which is given the name SHW_EMD.xxx where xxx is a three digit number, and the system generally retains the last five of these files.

In exceptional circumstances your Construction Library file may get corrupted - and you will probably get error messages and/or no entries showing up in the Construction Library dialog. If you select the 'Paths and Files' page of the User Setup dialog, then click on the 'Fix' button next to the Construction Library, you will see a dialog similar to the one below.

The available backup files are listed, together with their dates and contents. Indentify the most recent one that appears to contain the numbers of items you would expect. To substitute it for your current file, select it, then press the 'Restore this file' button. The existing SHW.EMD file will be renamed as SHW_EMD.BAK, and the selected file will be copied over as SHW.EMD and will be read in. To delete a file in the backup list which is no longer wanted (most probably because it contains no data), select it, then press 'Delete this file'.

Advanced users only: If following the procedure above does not give you a good EMD file then you may be able to recover a corrupted file by loading it into a text editor such as Windows Notepad and deleting/editing whatever is stopping the file loading correctly. EMD files are basic text files and the file structure is described at the top of the file.

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