Querying NText fields returns <long text>

[samsmithnz]

I'm having trouble with some ntext data in a comments field in our database. It doesn't seem to matter how I get the data, it just displays "<long text>". How do I get the real text from this field??

[Joe Mamma]

select Cast(MyNtextField as Varchar(8000)) MyNtextField from MyTable

[samsmithnz]

shoot. That doesn't work. I have a bad feeling that the data is acutally in there as "<Long Text>" and somehow the real long text is gone.

[Joe Mamma]

shoot. That doesn't work. I have a bad feeling that the data is acutally in there as "<Long Text>" and somehow the real long text is gone.

try

 

select MyNtextField from MyTable where MyNtextField like "<Long Text>"

[samsmithnz]

try

 

select MyNtextField from MyTable where MyNtextField like "<Long Text>"

 

So I get 16 records that say <long text>... does this mean I've lost my data?