locked record

[Guest]

I have an line that appeared in the table that seems to be Greek characters.
I can't delete it. Help. I can't sort or do anything because this entry is
interferring. Suggestions, please for (e-mail address removed) or debbie @wssra.org

 

[Guest]

Make a copy of your database. You have a bad record in your table. Copy
table structure and append the records from the old table to the new table
using criteria that will not include the bad record.. delete the old table
and rename the new one.

 

[Guest]

Hi Karen,

My first suggestion is that you *never* post a valid e-mail address to a
newsgroup posting. Doing so will only invite the unwanted attention of
spammers. Sorry if you have to learn this lesson too late.

The weird characters that you are seeing typically indicate corruption in a
table. If you are lucky, the corruption will be isolated to just a single
record. Memo, OLE Object and Hyperlink data type fields are more suseptible
to corruption versus other data types. I suspect that this table has one of
these data types defined.

Recovering from table corruption

1. Select the table that has the corrupted record(s).

2. Copy the table (Ctrl C). Paste the structure only of this table into a
new table name (Ctrl V).

3. Select the original table again. Click on File > Export... In the Save
as type dropdown, choose Text Files (*.txt; *.csv; *.tab; *.asc). Use the
option to export as delimited. Use a comma as the delimiter, and place a
check in the Include Field Names on First Row.

4. Open the new table. Attempt to import the data from the .csv text file
that you saved earlier. If all goes okay, you can delete the original table,
and re-establish relationships to the new table.

Note that if you used an autonumber field, then you may need to first
restore to a long integer, and then use an append query to append the records
to yet another new table, in order to restore the correct autonumber values.
Here are a couple of Microsoft KB articles for methods on dealing with table
corruption:

How to recover data from a damaged database table or a corrupted
database table in Access 2000, Access 2002 or Access 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=247771

How to Recover Data from a Corrupted Table by Using the DAO Method
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=815280


Tom Wickerath
Microsoft Access MVP

http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/expert_contributors.html
http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/search.html
__________________________________________

 

[Guest]

thanks we have 38000 records in the database and we were trying to find
another way to do this, other than recopying to a newly named file. Keep in
touch. We may be here for hours trying to fix this.

 

[Guest]

The method that Eric just outlined should work too. I've used that method
many times in the past with success, especially if the corruption is limited
to just one (or a few) records. 38,000 records is nothing in a JET database.
You should be able to fix this in a matter of minutes, or perhaps a half hour
at most. For my own curiousity, does the table in question contain any memo,
OLE Object or Hyperlink data types?

I'd like to suggest that you consider creating a new database after you have
recovered the savageable records from the table in question. Here is my
standard blurb on how to do this:

Create a brand new database and immediately disable the NameAutocorrupt
feature (see: http://allenbrowne.com/bug-03.html for reasons why you want to
do this). Then import all objects from the suspect database into the new
database, one group at a time. In other words, import all tables (but not
linked tables), then import all queries, then all forms, etc. While Access
will allow you to import all objects in one operation, the experts at FMS,
Inc. (a Microsoft Partner), have stated that it is best to import objects one
group at a time (Reference:
http://www.fmsinc.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000285.html).

Recreate any linked tables from scratch. Access can cache a lot of
information about linked tables, which may no longer be valid, so it's always
best to recreate the linked tables from scratch. When importing local tables,
make sure to check the option to import relationships, menus and toolbars,
and import/export specs. If any of the local tables in the source DB are
hidden, you'll need to first unhide them. You will need to set the checked
references to match the source database, along with any startup options set
under Tools > Startup. Going through this process often times solves
corruption problems, because you get a new set of the hidden system tables
(the tables whose names start with "MSYS"). These system tables are updated
appropriately as you import objects.

This may sound like a lot of work, but it really isn't. Creating a new
container DB, disabling NameAutocorrect, importing all objects one group at a
time, re-establishing any linked tables, setting startup options, and setting
references to match the source DB is usually a fairly quick procedure. When
you are in the Visual Basic Editor, in order to check that the references
match the source DB, you should do a Debug > Compile ProjectName as well.


Tom Wickerath
Microsoft Access MVP

http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/expert_contributors.html
http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/search.html
__________________________________________

 

[Guest]

Thanks, we have so many linked tables that recreating this seems monumental.
There should be no LOE objects, hyperlinks or memos in any field. We have
all my back up CDs out trying to find one that doesn't have corruption.
Easier to start with that than try to rebuild.

I appreciate the encouragement and information,
K