I have a VB 4 system which reads data from dBaseIV files.  
Actually the VB program uses Codebase (which writes
Clipper files I think, I'm not sure of the difference).  
Anyway a text box in the program displays the contents of
a dbase memo field on screen and it uses a Codebase call
to retrieve the record.  

The other day I added 2 new fields to the dbaseIV file
using the dBaseIV control center.  dBase went through a
process of copying the records (it displayed a counter).  
When the users started accessing the converted file using
the VB program again the memo field had garbage in it for
any records which existed at the time of conversion.  
However, all new records correctly displayed the memo
field.  

Now, before the time of conversion, trying to look at the
memo field on this file using Access 97 only yielded a
#Error# in the memo field.  AFTER conversion all records
which existed at the time of conversion correctly
displayed the contents of the memo field in Access 97
however any records created after conversion still display
#Error#.  I suspect, after rumaging around the web and
books and such that the internal blocking size was changed
for all records prior to conversion which is why the VB
program using Codebase doesn't work.  Can anyone offer any
advice as to how to get all the records which existed on
the file at the time of conversion back to the original
format so users can see the memo field in the VB4
program?  There are 33,800 records that need this fix...

Thanks...   Rich

I figured out the problem,  The problem was with how
Clipper formated the memo field verses how dBASE formated
it.  If you are using Clipper files and you use the
dBASEIV command center to restructure the file then the
memo fields are automatically converted to dBASE format.  
You need to exit to the dot prompt, USE the affected file,
execute the command "COPY TO <newfilename> TYPE DBMEMO3".
Then quit the command area and copy the converted files
(the DBF & DBT) back into production and rename them to
the production name.  Make sure you reindex any indexes
you have.  As it turned out the problem had nothing really
to do with VB or CODEBASE, they were just symptoms.