I'm unable to locate my quicken data file after a recent data migration, any suggestions?

MTerbrock

allenwhite

Before you give up...

A couple other places to look would be your appdata folder (it's a hidden folder, and files that are in there won't show up in search results) - since it's hidden, you'll need to configure your View option in File Explorer to Show Hidden Items.

By default, your appdata folder is located in C:\Users\<user>\AppData.

There'll likely be a few folders in there named Local, LocalLow, and Roaming. Look for a quicken folder in all three. By default, it saves in the Roaming folder;

e.g. C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Quicken\

while you're in there looking for your .qdf file (or could be saved with the file extension of .qdf-backup), and if you don't see that qdf file, then check for the QUSER.INI file - this file has details where the the backup file location is set to - it'll be in a sub-folder within the quicken folder, named config.

e.g. C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Quicken\config\QUSER.INI

Which brings me to the second place that your backup file could be - in case the QUSER.INI file didn't already detail it, or the .INI file wasn't found..

Your OneDrive (or Dropbox, GDrive, any cloud drive service that you may have been using - most common one is OneDrive though)

And if an initial file search for your .QDF file in onedrive comes up empty, Check the Recycle Bin in your OneDrive.

Hope this helps and you're able to find your backup file!

PowerSpec_MikeW

@MTerbrock

File extension on modern version of Quicken is QDF. Open up your file explorer and select the drive. In the top right search bar try *.qdf.

MTerbrock

This is an OLD version of Quicken (2003). I've looked under the four different file extension, one being qdf. I haven't been able to come up with it in my Carbonite backup either. The file was loading fine on my old computer before. Any ideas?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@MTerbrock

I can't recall if this was Quickbooks or Quicken, but one of them on the old versions liked to store the data files in your public user documents folder instead of the current user profile. Do you have the old drive to search and check public documents?

MTerbrock

I have the old drive, but not installed in a computer. I've done some research and I think I'm just going to give up and start over. This new computer is Windows 11 driven and this old version of Quicken, while I got it to load, is probably not going to open the old file even if I found it. To then upgrade the data over several different versions of Quicken to get it to a more current version sounds like a lot of potential problems too. I'm just going to start over. Thanks so much for your time.

MTerbrock

Thanks so much for this detailed information. Unfortunately, I already uninstalled Quicken 2003 and deleted all files associated with it and purchased the newer Quicken Deluxe version. I'm sure your solution would have been the answer. I just got impatient and decided to just start over. Thanks so much for your help and time.