How to redesign a database, split one into tables, and/or combine small databases into one

[pockets68]

I have five separate databases that are all related. I had used Access as a replacement for Q & A and did not use Access properly. Now six databases instead of one with related tables. I would like to combine them, and in at least one case split the huge database into tables. I am not sure the analyzer is doing it correctly as it seems to connect data incorrectly based on a business model. Can anyone offer suggestions that I can use to try out before I actually change?

[ItsMe]

What is Q&A? What are you using as an Analyzer?

If you need to merge similar databases together, you will need to ensure referential integrity is maintained. This means you will need to understand the relationships for the tables and their key values.

[pockets68]

Thanks for the reply. Q & A was a flat file database from Symantec. I understand the relationships I want and each database has at least one common field but I do not know how to combine the databases. The I analyzer I used is the one on the database tools tab in Access.

[ItsMe]

Interesting, I never noticed the Analyzer tool. I usually go to the Relationships Window, first. Then I go to queries and see what JOINS there are. You can definitely gain insight via the Object Dependencies tool. There are add ins that can help, too. MZ tools is popular.
http://www.mztools.com/index.aspx

Once you have the relationships understood and down on paper, there is not much else to do.

So if you want to redesign something, draw it out on paper by redesigning the Entity Relationship Diagram. Instead, are you trying to take similar tables and merge the data into one table? If that is the case, you will need to carefully append records to the new table and maintain referential integrity by reassigning Keys.