You might well find that the data is not actually correctly formatted for all records. If a humang being was ever editing the file, you might well have problems such as a missing CR/LF at the end of a line because a human accidentally deleted it, or perhaps an extra one snuck in somehow. Try writing a VBScript to read the entire file and then use the Split function with vbCrLf as the string to split by, and then output all the resulting array values and see if you find anything wierd going on. You might end up needing a hex editor to find out that the file was initially created on a Unix system of some kind, and therefore, only has LF instead of CR/LF at the end of each line. In that case, you might need a utility to transform the file, or you might need to change the BCP format file.