On 2008-03-05, thelotus99@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I need to know if anyone can recommend a software and/or method to
> recover contact information from Palm Desktop data files. I had an old
> computer that had Palm Desktop installed, and the OS crashed and would
> no longer boot. It was being synced to a Treo 600 or 650, but the
> phone is gone now. I was able to save the data files by connecting the
> drive to another computer, but I do not have the Palm installation CDs
> anymore. So I'm wondering if there is a way to recover the data from
> these files without having Palm Desktop installed.
>
> Any type of recovered data format is fine, whether it be a flat text
> file, CSV, etc, just as long as the data is readable.

Have you access to a Linux machine? The "strings" program may be of help, if all
else fails.

From the "man" page;

DESCRIPTION
The strings utility looks for ASCII strings in a binary
file. A string is any sequence of 4 or more printing charac-
ters ending with a newline or a null character.


--
"Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain
and presumptuous desire for a second one."
[email me at huge {at} huge (dot) org uk]

Huge wrote:
> On 2008-03-05, thelotus99@gmail.com wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I need to know if anyone can recommend a software and/or method to
>> recover contact information from Palm Desktop data files. I had an old
>> computer that had Palm Desktop installed, and the OS crashed and would
>> no longer boot. It was being synced to a Treo 600 or 650, but the
>> phone is gone now. I was able to save the data files by connecting the
>> drive to another computer, but I do not have the Palm installation CDs
>> anymore. So I'm wondering if there is a way to recover the data from
>> these files without having Palm Desktop installed.
>>
>> Any type of recovered data format is fine, whether it be a flat text
>> file, CSV, etc, just as long as the data is readable.
>
> Have you access to a Linux machine? The "strings" program may be of help, if all
> else fails.
>
> From the "man" page;
>
> DESCRIPTION
> The strings utility looks for ASCII strings in a binary
> file. A string is any sequence of 4 or more printing charac-
> ters ending with a newline or a null character.
>
>
The palm desk to is a free download and the newer versions are
compatible with the older files. You can go to
http://www.palm.com/us/software/desktop/ and download the desktop.

A second solutions would be to load the contact file into a word
processor, and cut and past the relevant information to a spreadsheet or
database. The file structure is quite simple and straight forward.

On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 05:59:51 -0800 (PST), "thelotus99@gmail.com"
wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I need to know if anyone can recommend a software and/or method to
>recover contact information from Palm Desktop data files. I had an old
>computer that had Palm Desktop installed, and the OS crashed and would
>no longer boot. It was being synced to a Treo 600 or 650, but the
>phone is gone now. I was able to save the data files by connecting the
>drive to another computer, but I do not have the Palm installation CDs
>anymore. So I'm wondering if there is a way to recover the data from
>these files without having Palm Desktop installed.
>
>Any type of recovered data format is fine, whether it be a flat text
>file, CSV, etc, just as long as the data is readable.
>
>Thanks much in advance!!!

1. Download & install the Palm Desktop as previously mentioned.

2. Email me all the files in the Palm backup and I'll send you a
PayPal link for payment after I recover them ;-)

John

>I need to know if anyone can recommend a software and/or method to
>recover contact information from Palm Desktop data files. I had an old
>computer that had Palm Desktop installed, and the OS crashed and would
>no longer boot. It was being synced to a Treo 600 or 650, but the
>phone is gone now. I was able to save the data files by connecting the
>drive to another computer, but I do not have the Palm installation CDs
>anymore. So I'm wondering if there is a way to recover the data from
>these files without having Palm Desktop installed.
>
>Any type of recovered data format is fine, whether it be a flat text
>file, CSV, etc, just as long as the data is readable.

There's a package called pilot-link, which runs on Linux and FreeBSD,
(not sure whether it also runs on Windows or not) which does transfers
to and from a Palm, and has some tools to dump *.pdb files (after
you grab them off the Palm) for various applications in various
formats.