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 Forums >>  IDA Pro  >>  How to load IDB files in older versions of IDA?

Topic created on: May 11, 2009 15:37 CDT by gven .

Hi,

I have a IDB file I was editing in my Ida v5.4, and tried to send it to a friend which uses v5.2. Ida says it can't load the file because it's created by a newer version. Hex-rays forums doesn't give any clue on that, and a Google search didn't yeld anything useful. Does anyone know of a way to convert IDB files back to older versions?

  phn1x     May 12, 2009 07:25.17 CDT
Your best bet is to export the database with IDC. Send your friend the binary and the IDC scripts.

Your friend will load the binary and have ida run through the notions of auto analysis. Then, run the IDC scripts which after a few minutes to a few hours (depending on the size of the binary in question) will reflect any changes, comments etc that you have made with your version.

It's a pain in the ass round about way, but It's the only way I've figured out how to do it shy of using something like Ida sync or collabreate.

  tagetora   May 12, 2009 07:27.16 CDT
I think the best approach may be to dump the database to idc and try to load it with 5.2. Of course, it won't load because some idc functions changed, but it will not be so difficult to patch the idc to make it 5.2-compatible

  gven     May 12, 2009 09:39.53 CDT
Thanks phn1x and tagetora, yesterday after posting my question I saw some post talking about "dump to idc" and tried that. Yes, it's giving me a headache to make it work, but I almost got it. I guess a few more hours working on the IDC will give me at least the basic information I wanted from the database.

  sikke   May 14, 2009 12:44.30 CDT
The idea is, you execute the .idc that you created first, using dump to .idc.
Then all comments reappear, etc. No need to even read the idc, run it!

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