Trouble with Quicken

[Worried19]

Does anyone know about Quicken?

I had a w98 and wxp (purchased 2003). I had quicken on my w98. I faithfully backed up my data on floppies. Recently, w98 failed and wxp got very sick (had to be reformated). My wxp already had quicken 2003 on it, but I never used it, instead just using my same quicken on the w98. I just recently purchased quicken 2005. Quicken tech support had me remove q2003 and install q2005 (premier) with my new cd. Okay, but tech support has been helping me for hours, to no avail, to get my data, on my floppies, into q2005. My case has been escalated, and I will be, I understand, emailing them the data.

My data had to be backed up to 3 floppies. The files on the 3 floppies are:

(1) Qdata.QB1

(2) Q3.DIR
Qdata.QB2

(3) Q3.DIR
Qdata.QB3

Tech support and I tried every conceivable method of getting q2005 to accept these files. We put the files on the c:\ drive. We copied the floppies onto new floppies, and then onto the C:/ drive (as well as trying restoring from the floppies themselves). "File NOT restored" was the response.

I have not had virus problems.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[TeflonSlinky]

What version was your original quicken file on the 98 machine? Have you tried uninstalling q2005, reinstalling q2003 and trying the import - then backing up from that version, reinstall q2005, then try to import the fresh backup?

It's a convoluted way around - but if you are anything like me the idea of not getting your quicken files back is or having to send all your personal account data to someone in QuickenLand is unnerving to say the least.

 

[Worried19]

Original I believe was q98. When I talked with tech support, I explained that I had q03 on my computer by virtue of reformating, and wondered if we should first use that and then upgrade to q05. She said no, that I would then have to pay for q03. So we uninstalled q03 and installed q05, as you know from above.

Now, I am having to send my data to q to get it useable, and guess what? Cost will be $200.

 

[TeflonSlinky]

Out of curiosity -how dead is your w98 machine? Is the failure hardware or data? I ask because if you can still get to the data on the old machine it may be possible to export your old quicken data to .QIF files which can be imported into Microsoft Money (cheaper than $200) or might even be able to import into your new quicken instead of trying to restore a backup. If your XP box was reformatted using a recovery disk it is possible that you have Money already included - it depends on what software was bundled with your system.

If your old hard drive is still operational, it might be possible to install it on your xp box as a slave drive and access the data in the quicken directory that way.

I am in the wrong business! I need to write a software package that people can buy for $100 bucks, then charge them an extra $200 if they actually want it to work.. why didn't I think of that before?!

 

[Worried19]

The w98 hd should be functional. I had thought about doing that (making it a slave drive), but hadn't read up on how to do it. I haven't opened my wxp yet. Are there risks?

 

[DoubleHelix]

It would be cheaper to buy a version of Quicken between Quicken 98 and Quicken 2005, import your data, and then make another back up.

Also, never never never back up important data onto floppy disks. They're very unreliable.

 

[Worried19]

If I take out my w98 hd and put it in my wxp as a slave hd, will I be able to access the files on it? In other words, will my q2005 be able to look in the w98 hd and obtain the file to import the data? Or will I have to have some software for the wxp to read the w98 hd?

 

[DoubleHelix]

Yes, you can hook up the hard drive to the Windows XP computer. You don't need any special software.

 

[Worried19]

I have the w98 hd drive out of the computer. I know that jumpers have to be done right. I don't see any jumpers. There is a diagram on it that shows how the jumpers should be configured. But where are they?

 

[Worried19]

Never mind. I see the jumpers now.

 

[Worried19]

I have thought of another possible solution. I could try to put quicken 95 (I think I have the original cd) on my wxp, and then upgrade to q98, which is what I was using on my w98. Then I could see if the q98 would read my floppies. If so, then I could upgrade to q05 (hopefully).

If I could just get my w98 working again, I could get the file onto a cd (instead of 3 floppies) and copy to wxp, and hopefully then q05 could read it and translate it into a q05 file.

(In the above two approaches, I am hoping that the problem is that when the data was backed up onto 3 floppies, the existence of the 3 files, and 2 .dir files, was what q05 couldn’t handle—that it needs just one file, that still exists on my w98, but is currently inaccessible.)

I just have to believe there is a way to do it, other than send my floppy files to quicken and pay $200.

 

[Worried19]

It was q97 originally, and I found the cd for it, as well as the cd for the q98 upgrade (that fixed y2k).

SO, I uninstalled q2005 and was able to install q97, and then to upgrade to q98. Then it could read the data on my floppies. Then I installed q2005, which retained the data.

SO, I was able to fix the problem myself, rather than pay $200 to the Quicken people.

This problem is now over, leaving only one more problem, having to do with my dot matrix printer, on another thread.