Fatal error message

Hi everyone. I am using AutoCAD 2000 on Windows 7. I tried to open a drawing that someone emailed me (he did save it in 2000 format) and I got the following message: "Fatal error: Unhandled access violation reading 0x0004 at 659b3ccbh" and then AutoCAD closes down. Anyone know what this means?

Can you insert the drawing as a block into an opened drawing?

Excuse my ignorance (I am a newbie), do I copy it from the email I received it in and "paste as block" into an open drawing? If so, it didn't work. It didn't give me he option to "paste as block" only "paste". I received an error message saying "can't find file in search path" and then it listed a whole list of files.

open new autocad drawing and then apply recover command and then select that one error drawing from this procedure the drawing file will be open and then apply audit command and purge command.... the drawing will be fresh.........

First, save the file to your Hard drive or network. Then open a new drawing and go to INSERT>DWG or BLOCK and browse to where you saved the file and INSERT the DWG as XREF or BLOCK. See if that works. You may need to reinstall 2000 if that fails.

Thanks SLW210 - it almost worked. It started opening the drawing and then it stopped and displayed a new error message and deleted what it had loaded. I think I'll re-install AutoCAD.

Thanks SLW210 - it almost worked. It started opening the drawing and then it stopped and displayed a new error message and deleted what it had loaded. I think I'll re-install AutoCAD.

I wouldn't re-install AutoCAD because one file won't load. Did you try using Recover command? If other files you have created still open then don't re-load. Ask the person that sent you the file to try again and have them run audit and purge on the file before sending to you.

I tried to recover. It says no errors found then tries to open. This drawing was created by a Chinese engineer. When it tries to open it says "font not found: hzdx" - I presume that is an uncompatible chinese font? I then select "bigfont.shx" to replace this font and then it tries to open again and I get the same error message. I will ask him to audit and purge and re-send to me. Thanks for all the help guys!!