Hello,

I do volunteer work for a nonprofit organization that manages its affairs using an application built upon MS Access. The application manages to corrupt the .mdb data files every couple of months, and the routine is getting a little old. The application vendor claims that it is not their fault, and that this is SOP for Access apps. They ship a "compact and repair" utility which can repair minor problems with the data file, but it is easily overwhelmed.

When the file becomes corrupt, as it has yet again, the vendor offers a service to repair it. Today, they tell me that one record in one table is corrupt. Price to repair the file: $250. There are better ways to spend this money.

I would like to learn how to do this repair procedure myself. If they can do it, I suspect I can too. In my real life, administering Oracle and Sybase databases is a portion of my job description, so I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty. Does anyone have any experience dealing with this sort of problem, and perhaps have any recommendations for tools or references on how to approach the problem? Googling turns up a ton of services (and a few tools), but I'm looking for the voice of experience, if possible.

Thanks!
--Dan.

Have you tried Microsoft's JetCompact utility? It can fix most things. Just make sure you properly select whether it's a Jet 3.x or 4.x database.

If that doesn't work, I can get you a 3rd party tool or fix it for you.

I'm assuming the front-end application is an Access MDE file...If so, do you know how it links its tables? You may be able to put your data in a mysql database and link it manually and use that instead.

(file hosted on my server...not sure where to get it officially)

Fixed link to 3rd party tool...I linked the wrong one earlier.

John, thanks a bunch. I'll have a look at these tools tonight.

Regards,
--Dan.