Why .mdb Files May Become Corrupted?

By Author: Technova
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There are innumerous things that can happen both inside and outside the Access, that may leave your database file damaged (corrupt). The symptoms of a corrupt database can expand over deleted appearing in certain records to you, you being unable to open one of the objects in the database or you being unable to open the database file in Access altogether. There is this Compact and Repair utility in MS Access is a useful tool for trying to optimize or trying to repair MS Access database files. Over here, we will discuss the main reasons why MDB files may corrupt:
Interrupted write operation
Always quit Access properly by clicking Exit or Close on the File menu. As if the database is open and writing data when Access is shutdown normally, the Jet database engine might mark the database as suspect/corrupt. This can happen if you turn off the computer without quitting Windows or when the power gets off suddenly. Other problems can occur that do not shut down Access but that may still interfere with Jet writing data to disk while database is still open. This can be a result of network experiencing data collisions or disk ...
... drive malfunctioning. If in case any of such problems occur, Jet might term the database as a potential corrupt database.
When Jet starts a write operation, it sets a flag and then resets the flag when the operation is complete. If a write operation is interrupted, the flag remains set. And when you try opening the database again, Jet determines that the flag is set and reports that the database is corrupt. Most of the time, the data of the database is not corrupt, but the set flag alerts Jet database that corruption might be the case. At this time, compacting or repairing the database can restore the database. Fortunately there are ways to determine which user and workstation was responsible for marking the file as suspect. With Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications in Access, you can output a list of users who are logged into a specific database.
Flawed networking hardware
At times, corruption can occur without Jet database engine being involved. For example, faulty networking hardware can result in corruption of a file. The reason behind this can be one or more links in the hardware chain between computer on which the database resides and the computer having the database open. Corruption can occur without Jet database engine being involved. This list expands over network interface cards, network cabling, routers and hubs etc.
Hardware-based corruption is typically indicated by .mdb files that cannot be restored through the use of compacting, repairing or Jetcomp. Hardware corruption usually recurs till the particular hardware is repaired or replaced.
Opening and saving the MDB file in another program
There is not a single way to recover an MDB file which was opened and saved in a different program. For example, you can open and save an repair mdb file in MS Word but if you were to do so, the MDB file can never be recovered, except from a backup copy. If you accidentally open MDB file in another application, make sure you don't save it in that format. It really serves no purpose to open a MDB file in another application, as if you do it, all you see is a random series of characters.
All such reasons of MDB database corruption are surely going to leave you in disgust. So, avoid these issues and rely on Kernel for Access recovery for all kinds of MDB database corruptions.