This is a MAJOR problem for me, I am unable to access hundreds of hours worth of files that I had made in X3 that I opened in X4 trial to test out the new features. I ended up saving almost all of my files in X4 after I was done working on them a bit and then I removed the X4 trial after the time is up and I have absolutly no access to hundreds of hour of work I had done in X3 because I get the massage that the files can not be imported or opened because they are not supported!! HELP, I cant purchase the upgrade right now and I NEED my files, they are my living. I am in major trouble and corel has some explaining to why I am missing days worth of work that I have already missed because I cant open anything. I checked support and it said I need the newest updates, which I already have.
One word. BACKUPS!More words... "Never experiment on original files even with good backups. Always use copies of the originals."
In fact use incremental file naming for files you would never want to do over again from scratch. As good as the technology has gotten over the years, it's still best practices computer operation to save different versions... eg: <Filename>ver1.cdr; <Filename>ver2.cdr. ...or more specific for you in this case... <Filename>verX4.cdr would probably be good... but do it from a copy of the original X3 file.Computers and computer programs are cantankerous creatures and it's possible for a file to get corrupted to the point where it's unrecoverable and therefore unusable.If you can't get X4 at this time... one possible solution is to find someone using it and ask them to "down version" critical files to X3 as you need them until you can afford to get X4. Or perhaps even load the trial version of X4 on another computer you have access to and do the work yourself.
And...
LEARN FILE MANAGEMENT! (It's worth it.)