Symptom:
When using Microsoft Access to open a corrupted Access database file, you see the following error message first:
The database ‘filename.mdb’ needs to be repaired or isn’t a database file.
You or another user may have unexpectedly quit Microsoft Office Access while a Microsoft Office Access database was open.
Do you want Microsoft Office Access to attempt to repair the database?
where ‘filename.mdb’ is the name of the Access MDB file to be opened.
A sample screenshot looks like this:
You can click the “Yes” button to let Access repair the corrupted database. If the repair is unsuccessful, Microsoft Office Access will show the error below:
Unrecognized database format ‘filename.mdb’
The screenshot looks like this:
And you can click the “OK” button and see a third error message:
The database ‘filename.mdb’ can’t be repaired or isn’t a Microsoft Office Access database file.
The screenshot looks like this:
which means Microsoft Office Access has tried its best but still cannot repair the file.
This is a trappable Microsoft Jet and DAO error and the error code is 2239.
Precise Explanation:
This error means Access Jet engine can recognize the basic structures and important definitions of the MDB database successfully, but find some corruption in the table definitions or table data.
Microsoft Access will try to repair the corruption. If the table definitions vital to whole database cannot be repaired, it will display the “Unrecognized Database Format” again and abort the open operation.
You can try our product DataNumen Access Repair to repair the MDB file and solve this error.
Sample File:
Sample corrupt MDB file that will cause the error. mydb_2.mdb
The file repaired with DataNumen Access Repair: mydb_2_fixed.mdb (The ‘Recovered_Table2’ table in the repaired file corresponding to the ‘Staff’ table in the undamaged file)