Data Recovery (2000)

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Here’s the scenario: a user grumpy about his new status as an ex-employee sabotages an Access app developed on the sly in the remote location on his way out; now the remote location is looking for support.

I believe that records, once deleted, are not actually gone until the next Repair/Compact. Assuming that is true, and please correct me if it isn’t, is there a well worn path for resurrecting deleted records? BTW, it’s not at all certain whether he opened a table, selected every record and hit the Delete key, or in the db container chose a table and hit the Delete key. TIA

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I don’t know of any “well-worn path”. If a table was deleted, it can sometimes be recovered provided the database wasn’t closed and no other tables were deleted, but that doesn’t apply here. One other problem you may face, however. Is the Compact on Close option active in the database? If so, then that’s the end of the story. Otherwise, there are some services around that might be able to salvage something. You might try http://www.fms-inc.com, they might have some software for recovery (but I’m not hopeful). And now would be a good time to revisit your backup procedures!

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Re: data can sometimes be recovered if the database wasn’t closed:
My experience involves an Access97 database, which may be different from the 2000 in what you can recover.
A user (well, actually, the creator of the database) removed an entire field containing data in the design a couple of months ago, and then called me desperately for recovery. There was no backup (had just been created on the network that day). I told her not to do another thing, but to CLOSE it and send me a copy. It was then that I read the recovery code from the Knowledge Base, and realized that it shouldn’t have been closed. I went ahead and opened the database in Qedit — an old text editor — and found samples of data that indicated the type of information that she had deleted — and it was in association w/ the other fields, so I wonder if Access deletes the whole table and re-creates a copy when the design changes? In any event, through lots of tedious work (thankfully, there were less than 200 records and most of them had no entries in that column) I recovered in somewhat messy form, the data that had been lost (at least, I was _told_ that I had found them!). I _thought_ I could see a couple of fixed patterns emerging (fi, characters preceeding the particular column) that could make recovery more automatic — but If this involved a lot of records I would definitely go out an buy a package from someone who had already figured that out, if it were available.
Basically, what I want to say here, is that there is possibly _still_ is a chance for him if the database had already been closed.
thx
Pat Williams

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I think the moral of the story is, “don’t expect to recover anything, and you won’t be disappointed!”

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> I think the moral of the story is, “don’t expect to recover anything, and you won’t be disappointed!”

Always wise!
thx
Pat W.

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Objects may not be gone until a compact, but data is. If the machine hasn’t been used since the ex-employee walked out the door, then one of the services might be able to recover something. I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it, though.

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Thanks, Mark and Charlotte!

After a little research, you’re both right. If a table was deleted wholesale, you may be able to use KB Q179161 to recover the table if some conditions hold true, e.g. haven’t closed or compacted the db, etc.. However, individual records are gone with little to no hope of recovery. It seems that based on how Access stores data in data pages, you’ll never be able to recover more than 5% of deleted records even in the best of circumstances, though there are plenty of services willing to charge you to try!

In my case, an employee decided to be a rogue developer, so we had no chance to develop the app well or consider backup strategies. It’s a hard lesson for them to learn, but I’m hoping they’ve learned something. Thanks again for your responses! Cheers!

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