Looking for help with .spd files

[Anton.valleyman]

Hi

 

Back in the day (2002 - 2008), I had just about every XDA running Windows Mobile PPC editions: XDA, XDA II, IIi, Exec (HTC Universal - the best of them all by a mile in my experience of being usable as a phone, yet a quirky device that was very useful as a PDA), Ameo (Athena) and then the TyTn II (Kaiser). I eventually switched to the iPhone, and have stayed there other than a summer of madness in 2014, when I bought the LG G3 (far too big...), the HTC One M8 (too slippery) and then the Galaxy S5 (which oddly was my favourite overall). I went back to the iPhone with the release of the 6 Plus that September...yeah, essentially the same size as the 'too big' LG G3 🤷🏼‍♂️. 

 

Pointless information sharing at an end, I'll get to the point. 

 

When I had my XDA phones, I used backup apps to save my texts, call histories and other relevant data, and I used several popular apps such as SPB Backup and PIM Backup. There may have been others, but I'll get to that in a minute. Whilst looking through some old external HDs and sorting through all the data recently, I came across these backups and have been trying to extract them so that I can get all nostalgic about that old data. In most cases I had saved at least one copy of the app itself with those backups, so that in future I may be able to get at it without too much effort. A lot of time has passed though, and in order to use them I've had to set up a suitable desktop Windows VM, install Visual Studio and then the MS device emulator package as I don't have any of the physical phones anymore. So far so good. PIM used files with the extension .pib, and I've been able to get 95% of these backups restored on the virtual emulator and then re-export into something more desktop-friendly. 

 

However, one set of backups that arguably have the data I'm most interested in, have the extension .spd .......and I can't find ANYTHING ANYWHERE about what app used that extension to back up the phone's data. It was data from my Ameo, backed up in Sept 07. I've tried installing SPB, Sprite Backup and Resco Backup but none of the apps recognise the files. If I open them in text editors, I can see the texts and the number / contact, but the rest of the data is gibberish in plain English speak, and the dates are either masked or coded in a way that I cannot decipher. 

 

My question, is DOES ANYONE know of what app would have created these .spd files, and where I can find a copy of it? I've searched and searched (and searched and searched) on what feels the entire internet, and other than one person on a little forum board asking the same question - but never getting an answer and finding an alternative solution to getting his data from another source - nobody has EVER seemingly mentioned this question before. I'm hoping that someone, somewhere will go "yes, I know that app" and help me out, though I don't hold much hope which is why I've given you my sob story context, just in case it jogs someone's memory. 

 

Any help would be appreciated. 

 

Thanks

Ant

[Nick H. Supervisor]

It looks like you can open SPD files with S Note. I would guess that a .spd file is a series of text, maybe like a form of Vcard from the days of Nokia phone contacts.

 

It's also suggested that you can change the extension to .zip to access the contents, but I would make a copy of the file and play with that rather than the original.

[Anton.valleyman]

20 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

It looks like you can open SPD files with S Note. I would guess that a .spd file is a series of text, maybe like a form of Vcard from the days of Nokia phone contacts.

 

It's also suggested that you can change the extension to .zip to access the contents, but I would make a copy of the file and play with that rather than the original.

Hi. Yeah I've tried renaming the files to a .zip and then opening it, but that doesn't work. I'm not kidding when I say I've searched and searched - I've gone very deep down the rabbit hole trying to find the answer. As I said in my post, I can see the data, but not all of it is understandable.

 

I don't know if S Note will work, because it's definitely not a Samsung file. There are spd files in relation to Roland keyboard players I think, too, which doesn't help when trying to search the web for clues. The data is there in the file, but I'd prefer to have it properly extracted. 

 

Thanks, though.

 

EDIT - I've tied S Note - it says invalid file format for each one. Worth a shot considering the other things I've tried, but no. 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Anton.valleyman
new info.

[Anton.valleyman]

If nobody can help with the files themselves, then please can people list out as many decent backup programs that were available around the 2003 - 2008 period for PPCs? I've got Sprite, PIM, SPB and Resco, but there were presumably others. Did HTC or T-Mobile etc have their own? I have looked for this but I couldn't see anything obvious.