.bak files ??

[97tbird]

i have a document that has the extention .bak ( a BAK file), and when I try to open this i get the message that windows can't open it, and that the application is unknown. then I went to its properties and "open with..." and changed it to MS word, then when i try to open it, word says" can't open because this file is bigger than 32MB"...so I was wondering what kind of program i need to open this file...(btw, notepad gives me the same message)
(this file contains some some type of backup data, if that helps any).

any tips/ideas??

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

.bak files are backups from an application...if you see them, they weren't cleaned up properly when the application exited.

I've never seen a .bak file THAT large! Check your disk for errors: right click on the C: drive, choose the tools tab, check & fix errors, reboot, wait a long while it combs thru your disks.

With a BAK file THAT large, I dunno what would cause it. Have you worked on any large graphic files or audio/visual files recently??

 

[97tbird]

Thanks for the comments.
actaully, i just got this file from another laptop, so nothing in my laptop caused the file size. It was already that size on the other laptop, and it also got the same messages when we attempted to open it...i just thought I'd try it on my laptop, just in case, but i guess that didn't work..

I don't know how to open it...nothing urgent, though..i was actually trying to help the owner of the other laptop.

 

[daves66nova]

can't you always erase .bak files?

 

[Quattro Pete]

If it was copied from another PC, then you most likely don't need it and can safely delete it.

A .bak file could be anything, depending on the application that created it. For example, if it was created by a video editing software, it could be an .avi file, or if it was a graphics editing software, it could be a .bmp or .png, or .jpeg or whatever.

See if you can open it with WordPad, but the size is an issue like you noticed... most programs will refuse to open it. If you do get to open it in WordPad, you will most likely get a lot of garbage on the screen, but somewhere in the first few lines of code you may be able to find the name of the application that created the .bak file. For example, if it says "Microsoft Powerpoint," just change the file extension from .bak to .ppt and you should be good to go.

If you can't figure out the source app, no biggie. I would just delete the file and be done with it.