Saturday, November 27, 2010

How to Solve MS Access ‘Unrecognized Database Format’ Error?


The extensibility of MS Access database format is the main reason why sometimes users fail to determine the Access database corruption. This happens because crashes and errors can also root from macros, VBA code, plug-ins, and the like reasons. To exemplify, let’s consider the following error message that can occur while trying to open an Access database:

‘Unrecognized Database Format’

This error can appear for the reasons mentioned below:

  • You are trying to open an Access database in an earlier version.
  • You are trying to open a corrupted/damaged database.
Fixing the Issue 

If ‘Unrecognized Database Format’ occurs while attempting to open the database in an earlier version, you can apply any of the below possible solutions:

  • Open the Access database in the later version of MS Access it was created
  • Convert the database to the earlier version of MS Access. For this, you need to have the newer version of MS Access and follow the steps given below:
    • Open the database (If the database is shared, ensure that it is not opened)
    • Click Tools menu and point to Database Utilities. Click Convert Database and then To Access version File Format, where version is the version of MS Access to which you want to convert the database
    • Type the name of the file in File name box of Convert Database Into dialog box and click Save
If ‘Unrecognized Database Format’ occurs while attempting to open the corrupted database, you need to implement any of the given solutions:

  • Restore the database from your last working backup
  • Use ‘Compact and Repair’ utility to repair Access database. To do so, follow these steps:
    • Close the database (If the database is shared, ensure that it is not opened)
    • Backup the database
    • Click Tools menu and point to Database Utilities. Click Compact and Repair Database
    • From Database to Compact From dialog box, specify the name of the file and click Compact
    • In Compact Database Into dialog box, specify the destination and name of the compacted Access file and click Save
Data Recovery Info
 
If ‘Compact and Repair’ utility is unable to fix the database corruption, you need a powerful third-party Access Recovery software to perform the repair. These are well-equipped products that can repair Access Database within clicks. The software use high-end plus safe scanning algorithms that result a complete Access Repair of corrupted database.

Applies To

  • Microsoft Access 97
  • Microsoft Access 2000
  • Microsoft Access 2002
  • Microsoft Access 2003

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Repairing database post “Msg 2570, Level 16, State…” Error

Data Purity is an option added to DBCC CHECKTABLE and DBCC CHECKDB commands to validate each column value in all the table rows of a SQL Server database. This command helps the user to ensure that the values saved in the columns are valid. And, in case the values saved in the table are invalid, then a user might encounter a 2570 error message, as listed below:

“DBCC results for 'table2'.
Msg 2570, Level 16, State 3, Line 1
Page (1:155), slot 0 in object ID 2105058535, index ID 0, partition ID 72057594038452224, alloc unit ID 72057594042449920 (type "In-row data"). Column "col2" value is out of range for data type "decimal". Update column to a legal value.
There are 4 rows in 1 pages for object "table2".
CHECKDB found 0 allocation errors and 1 consistency errors in table 'table2' (object ID 2105058535).
CHECKDB found 0 allocation errors and 1 consistency errors in database 'realdata'. DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.”

Repairing Database

The values saved in the database become invalid only when the database gets logically damaged. In such cases, the user needs to follow any of the below actions to overcome the corruption:

• Delete the entire database and restore it from an online or offline backup.
• Insert a dummy value for all the invalid records in the database.

While the above solutions can resolve the error message, there are few problems that might arise with the above resolutions:

• In case of no backup availability, all the database records will be lost.
• In case of inserting dummy records, the user might not able to decide what shall be the dummy value. And if in case the user decides, he/she might not be able to enter all the values (in case there are millions of records).

The above problems do not allow the user to overcome a 2570 error message in most cases. To surpass these problems and to access the records saved in the database, a third party SQL recovery application comes in handy.

Data Recovery Info:

Such commercial SQL database recovery tools available within a single mouse click and do not require any hard core technical skills for understanding. These tools recover almost all the records from any logically damaged SQL Server database and save them at user specified location.

Applies to

SQL Server 2005