Failed to recover a damaged library with 5 methods

EndNote EndNote General
1

Hi,
I save my EndNote library locally on mycomputer. Both *.enl file and *.Data file in the same folder. They worked well last night but when I restart my computer this morning I get the message:
“This library appears to be damaged. Please …”

I try these methods for recovring a damaged/corrupt Endnote library, but neither works.

  1. ENDNOTE: TOOLS > RECOVER LIBRARY
    This method is the first I try. Open/start EndNote (without any libraries), and choose Tools > Recover library, and open my damaged *.enl library file. However, 0 references is imported.

  2. CREATE A NEW .ENL FILE FROM *.DATA FOLDER
    Create a new, empty folder.
    Copy (damaged) .DATA folder to this new folder.
    Creat a *.txt file to the new folder, with the same name as the *.DATA folder and with extension *.enl.
    Double-click/open the new .enl file I created in the step above. However, I also get the same message:
    “This library appears to be damaged. Please …”. So that means some files in the *.Data folder are damaged.

  3. CREATE A NEW .DATA FOLDER FROM *.ENL FILE
    Create a new, empty folder.
    Copy the library file (*.enl) to this new folder.
    Double-click/open the .enl file I copied in the step above. Click OK to have EndNote create a new .DATA folder for this .enl file. However, I also get the same message:
    “This library appears to be damaged. Please …”. So that means the *.enl file is damaged.

  4. CREATE A NEW .ENL FILE FROM NEW FOLDER
    Create a new, empty folder.
    Creat a *.txt file to the new folder, with the extension *.enl.
    Double-click/open this new .enl file and create a new .DATA folder for this .enl file.
    Close EndNote.
    Copy the PDF and tdb folders from my old .DATA folder to this new .DATA folder.
    Double-click/open the new .enl file and it works. This means the PDF and tdb folders in old .DATA folder are ok.
    Close EndNote.
    One by one,replace the files in rdb folder by copying from my old rdb folder.
    Double-click/open the new .enl file and I find that it is those 4 files that have been damaged:
    refs.MYI, refs.MYD,refs_ext.MYI, pdf_index.MYI

5 I try to take the same library to a MAC computer with EndNote installed, and it can NOT recover it.

can you help please?
Thanks
Joel

2

Please contact Technical Support directly.

1-800-336-4474 option 4 then 1 or

https://support.clarivate.com/Endnote/s/technicalsupport?language=en_US

3

I’m having the same problem. Can you please help me?

Carmen 

4

I’m having the same problem. Can you help me? 

Carmen 

5

For anyone still having this problem, I found a solution that worked for me and maybe it does for you too. It required a second library though, but I suspect it also works with a completely new library.

I tried the “solutions” from OP first, to no avail. The solution was to copy the .enl and .Data of the corrupted library to somewhere else, after which Windows complained that one of the files (pdb.eni) was opened somewhere else even though I just restarted my computer. I clicked skip, and manually took that file from another library and placed it in the new location. After that I double clicked the copied .enl file and this time it worked! It doesn’t seem to matter that the new pbd.eni was from another library (which is weird, what is in that file then?).