Some corruptions will prevent you from opening the database in Access. Some
corruptions still allow you to open the database and in some case, you can
see the corruptions, e.g. a Record is corrupted.
Since Access mdb / mde are of proprietary file format, you won't be able to
get any info. by reading the file binary.
However, there are techniques to repair (most) corruptions without knowing
where the error is occurring, e.g. Repair & Compact, JetComp.exe, etc ...