This issue has reached resolution: the hard way.

I apologize for the huge gap in responding to the last few suggestions and reporting how I dealt with the issue.

Brief recap: After spending quite some time trying to find out why we were losing documents imported via our scanner (that we verified existed in the patient's file immediately post-scanning), I discovered that we were living in a parallel universe. Two databases existed on the main computer, one, under Amazing Charts resided in the root directory; the second under Amazing Charts resided in the Program Files directory. It turns out that we were not losing scanned documents, they just went to the "other" data base. Documents associated with patient files depended on which computer used; the main computer showed us one view; an ancilliary computer showed us another. We could see scanned documents on one computer that could not be seen from another. Based on the initial symptoms, we worked, for many hours, with AC Tech Support on "fixing" the "scanner problem." We were barking up the wrong tree. It is still a mystery as how and when the computer(s) decided to which data base the data would be written. (Little did we know, but patient notes were also affected.)

Having read all of your responses and suggestions in response to his topic, I decided against using the Amazing Sync program. Over the course of a couple of months (as I am stretched thin among many responsibilities) I did the following:

> I made the database under Program Files "the" database. I made the other one "old."

> I found a program called WinMerge (version 2.12.4.0) available under a GNU General Public License. Working strictly with the scanned document files under each patient, I used the program to give me a listing of the differences between the two databases. I now had a list of which patient files contained scanned items, and what they were.

> I used another program, Q-Dir (a two-pane version of Windows Explorer) to help me compare each patient's imported files in the parallel directory. Q-Dir gave me the type of file and it's size.

> If an imported item was the same file type and the same size, I opened up each to verify that they were indeed the same. (Along the way I found files that were either mislabled, etc. and I made changes).

> The method I started using to transfer documents that were missing from "the" database, but found in the "old" database, was cut and paste. However, I found that I had to change the names and I wasn't confident that that was the best way to handle the situation. I then used the Amazing Charts vanilla import function for each patient. It went easier and AC automatically changed the file name, without my intervention.

So, that is the story. We did lose some of the doctor's notes--since I didn't know how to mine the data that was not located in discrete files like the imported documents. However, I'm confident that we located and transferred almost all of the missing imported documents to one unified database. It was manually intensive, and had to be spead out over a long time period--because I needed exclusive use of the main computer, which meant working when the doctor and staff were not there--and I had to work within my schedule.

I don't know if the process could be automated, but what I did worked. I hope not to ever have to go through that again!

Mory