I used to run an ipb forum and used a mod that would email me a tar.gz dump of the database every hour (unstable host, didn't trust the server not to loose posts an stuff) I recently tried to open one of the files only to e told by rar on windows that it is corrupt and the tar command on linux that it does not look like .. actually here is the output root@***[/home/*******]# tar -zxvf forums-111306-0230am_sql.tar.gz tar: This does not look like a tar archive tar: Skipping to next header tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors Code (markup): I don't know if this means anything to someone with more knowledge than myself -i hope it does... If someone can help me to work this out I will be forever in their debt!
try to run the Repair on WinRar, otherwise, try to view the raw data in wordpad or something, otherwise, rename to .rar and try to open then, or try a different decompression app.
Total Commander can handle common archive files, including tar and gz archives. Fully functional shareware available at www.ghisler.com Try to retrieve the raw data as ccoonen suggests, then dump it via phpMyAdmin.