Disaster Avoided -- A Corrupted Microsoft Access Database File

I had a near miss today, almost losing my main address list, which I keep in Microsoft Access. I haven't used it in quite a while, as I have another list of recent address changes, but it's still my most comprehensive list of mailing addresses. When I tried to open it today, I got a message that it was in an "inconsistent state" and Access would try to repair it. Next, an error message that it "can't be repaired" or "isn't a Microsoft Office Access Database File."

I tried using my backup copies, but they had the same problem. It has been very long--4 years!--since I've put backups onto CDs or DVDs, simply because it takes so many of them, and have been relying mainly on one or two levels of medium term backups on an external hard drive.

Of course, this is far better than nothing, but the risk is just what I encountered today: having a file lost or corrupted and not knowing about it until the last "good" backup is gone. The same can happen with a virus. If you are keeping system backups but a virus has silently infected your machine, it could happen that all your backups are infected by the time you discover the problem.

I tried the solutions I found on the Microsoft site and by Googling, but they didn't work. The main thing I learned was that when your Access database is corrupted, there is a good chance that it's not something you can repair on your own. There are professionals who will do it, and some commercial programs. I tried one program, Advanced Access Repair, which quickly showed me that my data was recoverable. I was all ready to pay the $29.99 price of the program to actually recover the data, then noticed that the price is really $299.99. Oops.

Happily for me, the next program I tried was MDB Repair Tool, by Skysof, and it promptly repaired the database without my having to answer any questions or try different options. It just worked. To my surprise, this "trial" version actually recovered all the data for me for free, and I still have 58 more uses before I have to register. What a deal!

Lessons learned:

• If you can't or don't want to save full backups to long-term media (DVD, CD, tape, or online), then you should at least save your most important data that way once in a while. This method is risky because you might miss data you should have backed up, but at least you will have most of what you need. (Be sure to include your email in your backup; it may not be included if you're not careful).
• My address list doesn't need to be kept only in an Access database. I could periodically backup the actual address information so a simple text file. Then, if I lost the Access file, at least I would have the essential data.
• Hopefully I won't ever have to repair another Access database, but if I do, MDB Repair Tool will be the first thing I try.
Technorati Tags: backup,security,data,database,Access,tools,recovery,repair

Don't neglect online backups

A week ago, one of my friends was mugged on his way home from school on a bike path. He was badly beaten and ended up unconscious in the hospital. Though his bike, computer and some other things were stolen, and despite his injuries, I suspect that his most serious loss is much of the work he had done on a masters thesis. Apparently any backups he had were also stolen.

It's one thing to lose your most recent work, and losing your whole email store can be serious. But what if you lose something you've been working on for years--that book you're writing, a carefully compiled bibliography, your research data, a major proposal for your organization? It's almost unthinkable, yet it happens. Data loss is sure to happen if you have no backup strategy, but it can happen even if you do have backups. For example

• Backups may be lost along with your computer in a fire, theft, evacuation and so on
• Backup media may fail or be destroyed. Here in Nigeria, at least, flash drives have a high failure rate. CDs and DVDs can be scratched or damaged by sunlight and heat.
• If your original data becomes corrupted and you don't immediately know it, you may store the corrupted data in the backups.
• When do yo discover that your backup is damaged or corrupted? That's right, you discover it when you need it because your original data is lost.

For these reasons, it is important to have more than one level of backup for any data that is important to you. For any data that is really important, you should have at least two and preferably three backups stored in a way that they cannot be lost simultaneously. For example, you could keep one copy on a hard drive at work, one copy on a flash drive or re-writable CD at home, and one copy online.

In my last post, I briefly mentioned that one use of Dropbox was backing up your data online. Online backup should be more than an afterthought--it should be an important part of your backup strategy. Most of us in Africa do not have the luxury of a low-cost Internet connection that will let us back up all our data, let alone the whole system, but we can back up what is most important. Apart from multimedia files (video, pictures, music), your most important data, what you've actually invested the most time on, is probably a few hundred megabytes at most. You should at least consider saving some or all of it online.

There are many online data storage services, including a fair number of free ones. I like Dropbox--it works for me--but another solution might work better for you. One thing I like about Dropbox is that it keeps previous versions of changed and deleted files. That feature has already saved me a couple of times.

David Bradley's article "Make SkyDrive a Virtual Drive" describes the free Microsoft SkyDrive online service and add-ons that make it more useful and transparent. Some people send their important documents to their own online email addresses (a Gmail account, for example). It's not the simplest or most secure method, but it's a lot better than nothing.