Thanks to all who have responded to my plea for help. I either had tried or did try the PROC DATASETS route with REPAIR option and using MODIFY with INDEX DELETE, and the PROC SQL route with DROP INDEX. As a final attempt, I moved the sas7bndx file out the SAS library directory. All attempts resulted in SAS telling me that the index file was damaged and refusing to do anything with the file.

I rebuilt the file overnight, but I would still be interested understanding how a damaged index resulted in the file being unusable, and whether there was some other option I could have tried that might have recovered the file. I can simulate the problem (on a much smaller test file of course :-) by shutting down SAS while the index is being created.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

Dan

****************************************************** Dan Nordlund Research and Data Analysis Washington State Department of Social and Health Services Olympia, WA 98504-5204

-----Original Message----- From: Phil Rack [mailto:philrack@minequest.com] Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 5:51 PM To: 'Nordlund, Dan'; SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: RE: Damaged index preventing opening of file

Dan,

Look at Proc Datasets. Specifically, you want to try the Repair option.

Philip Rack MineQuest, LLC SAS Consulting and Contract Programming 1939 Queensbridge Dr. Columbus, OH 43235 Tel: (614) 457-3714 Fax: (614) 737-3419

http://www.MineQuest.com E-mail: PhilRack@minequest.com

-----Original Message----- From: Nordlund, Dan [mailto:NordlDJ@DSHS.WA.GOV] Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 8:04 PM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Damaged index preventing opening of file

I was building an index on an existing large file, when my computer "crashed". Upon restarting, SAS tells me the index file is corrupted and won't open the file. Is there any way for me to use the file without the index, without having to rebuild the large file?

Dan Nordlund

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