Xpj file disappeared and RH8 now will not open

Question

I was working in RH8 on Friday (4/29)and I clicked Save. The application (RH8) closed/crashed/disappeared (which occurs occasionally). I re-opened RH8 and browsed to the project and double clicked the xpj file. I received an error that RH could not find the file (remember however, I clicked on it to open). I was never able to get the file open even though I could see the xpj file. I loaded the project on a thumb drive and took it to another computer and received the same error.
I zipped the file just because I wanted to have a back-up. I should say that I was having problems with RoboServer 9 and took the project out of RSC 4/22 so that I could launch the WebHelp project on the intranet on 4/24. I have made several updates to the file and republished it for 4 days before the crash.
I opened RH8 and clicked open from the starter page. The application did nothing, well actually it froze and I had to go into Task Manager to shut it down. So I did the usual reboot and tried again. Same thing happened.
Next step was to go to the menu, File, Open...froze again. Now I can open RH by double clicking an xpj file (from another project because as I said the project was working on the xpj file disappeared.) However I still cannot open RH itself by using Open or the File/Open option and I have to do a Task Manager shut down.
First I deleted and re-installed RH8. Problem continued.
So, I delete CS2, and reinstalled the entire suite. Problem continues.
If I go into my zip file, you can see the xpj file and if I double click to open...it does open but no topics are in exist inside.
So then I took the version (from thumb drive) that I saved to use on another computer and double clicked the xpj file to open (because this is the only way I can open RH8). Now the error message says that the project is from an earlier version and is no longer compatible. I have version 8.0.2.208 installed and it says there are no updates.
HELP!
Make yours and Incredible Day,
Verlean
Message was edited by: Verlean

Answer 1

I called the helpdesk and they repeated all the steps I had already done. I had held off from deleting the cpd file and xpj file because I knew there was about 60 hours of intense work that I would potentially lose.
I had restored my computer to several different days in hopes that I could go behind the corrupt file. It looks like the corruption occurred behind the 60 hours...boohooohoo!
However, deleting the cd and xpj and opening the hhp with RH* was the only soution that solved my problem. An yes I lost all the work.
To answer your question E was a thumb drive. I took my project off my computer when uninstalling and re-installing software. Just to be safe.
I think I may have found the source of my corruption. Almost all of my documents are imported from FM8 or 9. They have .css that I convert to RH .css. There is one FM style that in particular most often will not convert even after I manually change it. It will revert back to the FM_RED style from the FM .css. This styel is red text put in to highlight recent changes. I noticed in all the FM documents that the red text has never been changed back to black even after 2-3 years. I came to the conclusion that it was never changed because the FM doc would not allow it to be changed.
While in RH I can manually convert the color to black but I cannot map the style to any other RH style where it will convert. Sometimes it will let me manually convert...sometimes. There are over 400 topics with this FM_RED style.
So many issues....
So, this  original corruption may have cause my search function to break. The published webhelp file looks for the search words, returns 100% but no results are returned. This is however not only "all" search items.
The problem seems to be in the whfbody.htm and length is "null" line 552. which I think means the search results are too large.
Any ideas on the search function or should I start a new thread?
Incredibly, Verlean