Undo Table Design Changes

[MelindaP]

I did something very bad...



I have a field of SSN's I had thought I had them set to be required and never duplicate. I just realized today that the field was not set up this way.

My major mistake was thinking, I can bring the field size down to 9, because SSN's are only 9 digits. So when I got the error message that I may lose data, I was not worried because I was confident none of my SSN's were over 9... So really, they all were. Because I do have that field with an input mask, designed for the SSN and really that means my field size is 11. And now the last 2 digits of over 400 SSN's are gone.

Is there anyway to "Undo" this? This was my very last action in the database...

I could have sworn that I read that there is a way to fix this, but of course, now that I need it I can't find it.

I'm also a newbie so please speak slowly and use small words!

[Datagopherdan]

If you're working from a company on this. I would suggest contact IT and having them provide you with a back-up copy of the database. Typically, IT does do system back-ups on a regular basis, so chances are they will have a back-up that you can use that will the database. This is providing that you had the database on a network drive and not your local C:\.

[MelindaP]

ah... I'm not that lucky, i'm the IT person... we are that small. so that was my only option?

[Datagopherdan]

I really do not know of a way to get that back. I know you probably do not want to hear this but you should always, always, always do a back-up of the database when you're doing changes like those. Do you have that data anywhere else such as in a text file or spreadsheet?

ah... I'm not that lucky, i'm the IT person... we are that small. so that was my only option?

[MelindaP]

no... but i can take the time and re-enter the important ones....

how can i back up the db, for next time?

[Datagopherdan]

You can just simply copy and paste the Access database from the directory.

no... but i can take the time and re-enter the important ones....

how can i back up the db, for next time?

[MelindaP]

ok thank you so much for your help!