Recover damaged drawing when RECOVER command not successful

If the RECOVER command does not work to completely recover or salvage parts of a corrupt drawing, try the following suggestions:

Note: To avoid possible drawing corruption, create a copy of the drawing, and use the copy when trying these suggestions. Do not use the original drawing.

• Using Windows Explorer or the Windows Find feature, search the entire hard disk for SV$ files or BAK files with the same name as the drawing. Rename those files so that they have a DWG extension, and you may be able to open them.
• Use the DDINSERT command to insert the corrupt drawing into a new drawing. Note: Be sure when inserting the drawing that you do not select 0,0 as the insertion point. Select an arbitrary point on the screen, or if the coordinates are important, enter 1,1. You can move the drawing back to 0,0 later when the file has been recovered completely.
• Start a new drawing using the Start from Scratch option.
• Open the drawing in a previous release of the software, if available.
• Export the drawing as a DXF™ file, then import the DXF file.
• If the drawing was last saved in the AutoCAD 2000 or 2004 format, you can try using partial open to load the drawing one layer at a time until you find a layer containing an error and then skip that layer next time. See related documents for instructions on using the partial open feature.

See also

Errors when using INSERT command