Important Guidelines for Successful Access Data Recovery

A number of factors, particularly environmental factors could leave your database file (MDB file) damaged. If you find that there are problems with the performance of Access, find #Deleted appearing in certain database records or are simply unable to open the database file, this could indicate that the file has been damaged. Before trying to open the file anyhow and continuing to work on the database, it is best that you try and fix the problems in the MDB file so that the file does not get even more damaged. Microsoft Access makes two tools available for this purpose ' the Compact and Repair tools. These can be used to quickly carry out an Access recovery so that no data is lost and the MDB file is optimized.

Let us now look at the exact role each one of these tools plays:

1.      The Repair utility actually carries out the work of fixing the damage in the MDB files. However, it is limited to fixing only certain types of damages and that too only in the data related parts such as the tables, indexes and queries. It cannot actually repair the interface objects such as forms, reports, modules or macros.

2.      The Compact tool does not carry out any repair work but compacting the MDB file is the best form of preventive maintenance that you can have. By identifying the possible causes of corruption, compacting actually reduces the possibilities of requiring urgent Access recovery. For example, the Compact tool,

·        Can reorganize the pages in a table so that there is very little fragmentation across the database.

·        Can make better use of the space created by deletion of records and other objects.

Though the Compact and Repair utilities are fairly easy to use, one should be aware of the steps to take before actually running the utilities.

Step 1: Always make a copy of the MDB file that you fear is damaged. This will be useful if the repair tools end up causing more damage to the MDB file.

Step 2: Close all the MDB files and if there are any corresponding LDB files, delete them. Typically LDB files are created if a database is open for shared use ' an LDB file is created under the same name as the MDB file that is to be shared so that users can access the data simultaneously. This file is typically deleted once all users exit the database unless and until the database is corrupted.

Step 3: Now you can run the Compact and Repair utility on the MDB file that you suspect of being damaged. After that, you can check to see if the database has been successfully restored.