Catch 22 or How Screwed Am I?

I open up my backup software - point it over to the backup - set it up to do a full restore and what do I get?

Every file returns with: Compression Information Mismatch [4886 1316] error message.

How screwed can you get? Let's search the internet on that message and find out. Oh my, I am screwed indeed.

So I am trying to restore with version 4.85. Luckily I printed the log file and see that I need version 6.0 to be on the one that created the file. I deduce that some how there is a difference in the algorithm that was used to compress those files. But I see lots of grief about other screwed people that had compression turned on when they created the backup.... let's see did I have compression on?

Well of course I did.

But it appears to me that maybe just maybe if I can find a copy of version 6.0 I might be able to restore these files.

So I start searching the internet for anything I can find on Stomp BUMP 6.0 and darned if I can find anything that will help. Did I mention it is Christmas Eve and my daughter flew 500 miles to visit?

Finally I resolve myself that nothing is going to happen until after Christmas so I post some messages on various forums asking people if they know where I can find a 6.0 version. And I try to put it all aside and enjoy what little time is left of my daughter's visit.

Oh the pain of it all. A year's worth of all my financial and tax records locked up in a file that I can't access. Maybe I can get it back from one of those hard disk recovery companies....

Maybe Santa will twitch his nose and this will all go away.