Need to break a database (Access97 SR2)

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Bit of a weird question, but here goes:

A colleague of mine is testing a project of his that is designed to sort out a broken database at the clients end. However, to test this, he needs a broken database (specifically, the one we supply to the clients). Does anyone know of a way of breaking a database so it needs repairing, or any tips other than 1: making it about 800 Mb or 2: having simultaneous users (question though: do they just have to be in it, or do they have to be working on tables etc. in it???). Any help would be great.

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How badly broken? Does it need to be repairable?

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Actually I don’t think either of your steps would break it. I assume by a broken database you mean one that is corrupt and needs to be repaired. This seems to happen most often when one person is updating a database and another person in the database has a system crash (probably in the midst of making an update too). But even that only seems to happen occasionally. I would try messing with one of the system tables – eg MsysObjects – but I must confess I’ve never tried to deliberately corrupt a database. Before you do that make sure you have a backup (or several) as you may find that kind of damage is not recoverable. Hope that helps.

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As the others asked, what do you mean by broken?

Lacking any other info, I have several people start update queries then turn-off the server.

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I vauguely remember reading something on MSDN that demonstrated a very deliberate method of ‘corrupting’ an Access database file. The details are very fuzzy, and I’ve tried looking through MSDN again, but can’t find the article (as I never can) (incidentally why is it that you only ever run into useful articles when you are looking for something entirely unrelated?).

Anyway, this might jog someone elses memory who has seen the ‘method’ for corrupting Access on MSDN ?

I have a sneaking suspicion that it was in amongst some ‘record locking’ stuff.

Anyway, my 2 cents worth

J

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I would add that, in addition to the other suggestions, one of the fields that you are crashing in the midst of updating is a rather large memo fld — that might do it. At least, that’s the sum total similarity of the repairs I’ve had to do so far —

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Sorry for the late reply, had a couple of days away from the office.

Basically I was after getting it to come up with the “database may be corrupt and needs to be repaired, would you like to repair it now”.
I made numerous backups of the database before I started.
Thanks for the tip about MSDN, and I agree that when looking for something specific you always find loads of other great tips. I usually end up with a directory full of htmls to read later as they looked useful.

I have managed to break the database a bit. It seems fine, but if I try to compact it, it returns an error and asks to be repaired. I have given this info to my colleague who requested it, but as I haven’t been in the office, I’m not sure whether it was sufficiently broken.
Thanks for all the tips though, and if it isn’t sufficiently broken, I’ll give some of them a go.

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