I can open most of the FileMaker files on our network. But all of a sudden I've been getting errors when I attempt to open a couple of the files that were working fine all these years.

When I try to open these problematic FileMaker Pro 5.5v1 files, I get the following error:

"This file is damaged. Click Continue to continue using this file, or click Exit to exit FileMaker. Consult the FileMaker manual for information on Recovery".

So I click "Continue" continuously and yet the above message doesn't go away. So then I click "Exit" and try to Recover the file by selecting the "Recover" option under the "File" tab and I get the following error:

["filename" was not created by FileMaker or is severely damaged and cannot be opened]

I would REALLY appreciate any tips that would help me recover these files successfully. Thanks in advance for your willingness to help.

This may not be very easy. I guess you don't have recent backups?

While trying to recover files, you should copy the files to a local drive and ideally work without a network connection. FileMaker 5.5 had the nasty habit of "jumping around" on a network and may open another file with the same name as your FileMaker file. I once had a similar case where the problem turned out to be that FileMaker even ignores the file extension, and thus tried to open a file "filename.pdf" on the desktop rather than "filename.fp5" on the server... IIRC that gave the exact error message you are having. In other words, you should locate and rename any files that have the same name as your FileMaker file.

You could also try to open the files with FileMaker 9, which has a more powerful recovery function (you can even use the free 30-days trial to do this).

If this doesn't work either, contact FileMaker, Inc. - they provide a recovery service for cases like this.