Read fixed width text file *resolved/open to tips*

I'm starting a task where I'm going to need to read a fixed length text file and write it to SQL 2000 which I haven't done before. I don't want to start from scratch and run into the normal pitfalls if I can help it. Can someone point me to some existing code or a good tutorial on it? The SQL part is not a problem. What I'm looking for is a way to predefine the fields and the lengths to read into. I've run across snippets of code in my search but not a working model.

EDITED ***

Just in case someone else searches on this topic this is what I did and it seems to work. I'm open to constructive criticism and could use some tips on error handling for this. I just grabbed pieces from here and there to put it together. This is just the basic starting point to my task so if any one does have some tips now is the time.

VB Code:

Private strBWCClaimNumber As String
Private strMCONumber As String
Private strNoteCreateDate As String
Private strNoteTitle As String
Private strAuthorUserid As String
Private strAuthorLastName As String
Private strAuthorFirstName As String
Private strNoteID As String
Private strNotePrimary As String
Private strNoteContinuation As String
 
Public Type NotesExport
    BWCClaimNumber As String * 10     'BWCClaimNum
    MCONumber As String * 5           '10005
    NoteCreateDate As String * 10     'mm/dd/yyyy format
    NoteTitle As String * 40          'Subject or Category of Note
    AuthorUserid As String * 30       'Note Creator Userid
    AuthorLastName As String * 30     'Last Name from refUserInfo
    AuthorFirstName As String * 20    'First Name from refUserInfo
    NoteID As String * 50             '10005 + pkNote
    NotePrimary As String * 4012      'Primary text of note
    NoteContinuation As String * 4012 'Continuation text of note
End Type
 
Private NR As NotesExport
 
Public Sub ImportNotes()
    Dim iFile As Integer
    Dim L As Long
    
    iFile = FreeFile()
    
    
    Open frmMain.txtImport.Text & frmMain.lvImport.SelectedItem.SubItems(1) For Random As #iFile Len = Len(NR)
 
    For L = 1 To Int(LOF(iFile) / Len(NR))
        Get #iFile, L, NR
        strBWCClaimNumber = NR.BWCClaimNumber
        strMCONumber = NR.MCONumber
        strNoteCreateDate = NR.NoteCreateDate
        strNoteTitle = NR.NoteTitle
        strAuthorUserid = NR.AuthorUserid
        strAuthorLastName = NR.AuthorLastName
        strAuthorFirstName = NR.AuthorFirstName
        strNoteID = NR.NoteID
        strNotePrimary = NR.NotePrimary
        strNoteContinuation = NR.NoteContinuation
        DoEvents
    Next
    
    Close #iFile
 
End Sub

Have you looked at simply using the BULK INSERT command that SQL 2000 has?

We have little TEXTIMPORT programs we have developed here - they take fixed-width TEXT files and load them into tables. We analyze the table first to see how wide each column is and then use MID() to cutup each line read from the TEXT file and build an INSERT statement for each line and execute that. We have .INI files that control and override certain things during these INSERT's...