Well now, THAT will teach you to re-arrange data folders, won't it? <g>

Unless someone else has a better idea, about the only way *I* know is to look INSIDE the files for the folder reference.

To do that, you'll need a file viewer utility like LISTPLUS (LIST.COM) from the command prompt, or perhaps something a little more modern, like the V utility (with V, use VIEW -- TEXT).

You'll see a bunch of gobblety-[censored] when viewing the file; what you are looking for is the folder name for the original security.

Here's what you'll see in "V":

Here's what you'll see in "LIST":

If you can't find it, search for "C:" (or whatever drive you store stuff on) and it should turn up.

If you depend on FAVORITES.DTA, you're screwed. Not just in this instance, either -- I have found over the years, through multiple versions of Metastock (since 8.0), different versions of Windows and new hardware, that the file is far too easily corrupted.

This problem has never been fixed, there are no utilities to "clean" the file, and no intention on the part of Equis to remedy the problem. The next time you are tempted to use the "Favorites" feature, read this thread.

In addition, when it's time to run the monthly Symbol Utility update, you may find random changes, made for no reason, in the organization of folders. Then what happens is that the older symbols in the previous folder may not get updated -- which you will only discover when you "browse" a chart and happen to notice that some symbols are current, while others do not. Also, if you delete the older "obsolete" folder, all your lists in FAVORITES.DTA may no longer be any good!

In any event, I have found FAVORITES.DTA is utterly unreliable. If you must use it for some temporary purpose, I suggest you do a simple "copy" backup (use Windows Explorer and CTRL-C and CTRL-V) after exiting Metastock, each time you add something to Favorites.

MS Support: If there's any chance you've got the file format handy -- or can otherwise obtain it -- send it to me or post it, and I'll see if I can either dust off my programming skills or hire someone to write a file-checker/repair tool.

All I have in "Favorites.dta" are 18 folders of 10 items each (plus "Explorations" and "Results of last exploration"), yet the file is 19 MEGABYTES!

*.MWC files "lose" the connection to their "Favorites.data" folder at random. If I don't save a chart as a template regularly, it's toast. When changes are made to Folder Organization of the Symbol Utility, I can't delete the old Folder, or EVERYTHING relating to "Favorites.dta" is toast.

It's ridiculous, really. I have to keep separate lists, just in case, and can't weed out old folders from the "C:\Metastock Data" directory.

If the EXACT same folder names are used in the re-created favorites.dta file, will existing *.MWC files preserve their references?

TO: MS Support

After doing my monthly backup, Symbol Update and re-download of data, I've given your suggestion a try.

Running a separate Exploration for each list in the FAVORITES.DTA file, deleting the file and re-creating the lists with the exact same name, the file size shrunk down to 80k, from 18 meg.

However, not a single *.MWC file kept it's references.

This method is of no use to fix the defects in FAVORITES.DTA.

Can I email a ZIP'd version of FAVORITES.DTA and have you folks fix it? ZIP will shrink it down to about 1 meg.