I have just tried to open a MS Money file which I haven't used for about 2.5 month and received the following error:

MyMoney2 is corrupted or not a Money data file. Make sure you are openning a file with an MNY estension ...

I tried using MS Money's recovery feature, but it said that the file is invalid.

I have also tried openning two backups (one from 3 month ago, one from 6) and neither would open. However, a 11 month old backup worked just fine.
Any ideas what's wrong and how to fix it?

First, see if the sample.mny or a new Money file will open correctly. If they won't, you have a problem with your system.

Second, uninstall Money and reinstall it in a new directory. Sometimes this forces Money to overwrite a conflicting dll.

Third, try installing Money on a new machine and see if the file will open.

Good luck! Please make sure to report back how it goes.

If none of these work for you, I suggest you vist the Microsoft Money newsgroup at news:msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.money

In following Bollar's suggestions, if you get to step 2, if you have more than one version of Money showing in the Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs, remove all versions. Money should make it difficult for you to have 2 versions on your system at the same time, but it's probably possible (and that certainly could explain the message you're receiving). Also, if I have to remove a program and reinstall, I usually try to remember to run Norton WinDoctor between the removal and reinstall in order to catch pieces that the install may have left behind.

Also, if step 1 does not work (particularly if step 3 does), consider running Norton Disk Doctor (with a full disk scan) or something similar to see if your hard disk is corrupted.

Any version of Money should open Money files that are from that version of older. So, if you have Money 2003 installed, it should open that version and any earlier version file. If you have a Money 2004 file and try to open it with Money 2003, you'll get the exact error you've mentioned.

Also, note the one exception is international versions. In general, most versions of Money will only open the same country's files, i.e., a file created in US Money will not open in UK Money.

Sounds like those backups are corrupt What kind of media do you have them on

Import them into Quicken.

I don't see an option to? I have a copy of Quicken Home and Business 2004, but that only seems to accept QIF and Turbotax files, not .MNY .

The corrupted file was stored on an external HD.
I have also found another backup made in September (so 9 month) and that one also works fine.
However, neither the most recent file, nor the 3 and 6 month backups do.

A few other suggestions: Try copying the most recent Money file to your internal hard disk and opening from there (try the same thing with the most recent back-up file, opening through Money's Restore Back-up function). It sounds like your external hard disk is going/has gone bad. Check it with Norton Disk Doctor or something similar. It is also possible that the problem is the cable between external HDD and the computer; check it as well. Try changing to a different port, if your computer has more than one port. (I don't think you would get the same messages if the disk were full, but I am not certain.)

If the external HDD is going bad, you probably have more than these few files that are a concern. You may need to take it to computer shop to have as much as possible recovered. In the meantime, back-up as much as you can.

Post back and let us know how things go.

I moved the files to the internal HD, but the result was the same. Also, the 11 month backups which works was on the same external HD (the month-old one was on a different PC) .

Presuming you're not using Money 2004, you might have success installing Money 2004 and using it to convert the file. You can get a free trial of Money on the MSFT web site, so you won't have to pay unless it fixes the problem.

I've found that more recent versions of Money are good at fixing corrupt files.

Also, if you're using a recent version, look for a program called salv.exe in the ?program files\microsoft money\pss? directory. This program is able to fix some types of file corruption.

The file was originally creat with Money 2003 and I have tried openning with both Money 2004 (borrowed a CD from a friend) and money 2003. No go
Salv.exe gives the following error: "Invalid Database"

I have most of the data on paper, so I am probably going to start entering it into the 9-month old file. Going to be a pain, but I am kind of doubting there is a way to get the newer one to work.