Curious if there is any IDX file recovery procedure you recommend or is documented. Say the DAT file is intact but someone erased the IDX. My thought was to rename the DAT. Build a new empty IDX/DAT then use the LOAD in ISMUTL to reload the data. This is on IBM AIX box so DAT file is a sequential file. This does not work. Then tried renaming the DAT, building new empty IDX/DAT, erasing the new DAT, renaming the old DAT back to the original DAT name and then using ISMUTL REBUILD. This seemed to work. But, prior to the REBUILD I did a VERIFY and it came back OK on both the primary and secondary indexes? Curious?

You can rename the DAT, reallocate the file, copy the original DAT back (you now have a good but empty IDX and the original DAT), then run rebuild. I have done this a number of times and it works great.

The VERIFY works by scanning the IDX, so if the IDX is empty, it probably doesn't look much at the DAT. The REBUILD, however, does work from the DAT file.

Well, sounds like I am handling this the best way. The rename of DAT, reallocate an empty IDX/DAT, erase the new empty DAT, rename the old DAT back and then do the REBUILD. This does work for me.

Thanks everyone.