Retrieving data from linked database

[dwilkerson43]

Good morning, all!



I'm an IT guy for a medical case management company. We use Access to process our time and expense forms. We have a back end database set up that holds our tables, and a front end for our users with forms/queries/modules.

My question is this: I recently had a nurse case manager's computer crash. Appears to be a bad hard drive. I have the hard drive connected via a hard drive reader to my PC, and can see the Access files, however the back end appears to be corrupted. Is it possible to open the front end and retrieve the data from the linked tables? I'm presuming I'd need to open the front end without updating the tables and I'm not entirely sure if that's possible or if that data is even actually stored in the front end.

I apologize if this is a newbie question -- I'm relatively new to Access and have only just started working on our database. Thanks for any help in advance!

[CJ_London]

your post does not make sense to me

We have a back end database set up that holds our tables

I would expect this to be on a server

however the back end appears to be corrupted

implies it is on the local machine

Implication is each user has their own back end and nothing is shared. Please clarify

Is it possible to open the front end and retrieve the data from the linked tables?

If the front end is corrupted then no. If the backend is corrupted then again, no. Have you tried copying the corrupt(?) back end to your local drive and trying to open it there?

[dwilkerson43]

It is on each local machine, yes. We don't have a server for it. The set up is each nurse gets a laptop with the front end on their desktop and the back end in C:\. Sorry about the confusion! I have tried copying the corrupt back end to my drive and opening it, and it won't open. Alas.

[ssanfu]

It is on each local machine

What is "It"?

So:
Each nurse has a laptop
There is a FE on the desktop of each laptop
There is a BE on C:\ of each laptop

Are the BEs synchronized? Or each BE/laptop just data for one nurse?

What about back-ups? Is each laptop backed up? If yes, what schedule?






The 3 rules of computing:
--------------------------
1) Backup


2) Backup



and




3) BACKUP!

[CJ_London]

so to summarise, these are effectively stand alone applications which each nurse uses independently of everyone else i.e. does not share data, just stores and creates their own data.

Back to your corrupted BE, only other thing I can suggest is from another db, see if you can link to it. If you can't then your data will be lost. There may be companies out there who might be able to recover the data for you but I can't recommend one.

[dwilkerson43]

so to summarise, these are effectively stand alone applications which each nurse uses independently of everyone else i.e. does not share data, just stores and creates their own data.

Back to your corrupted BE, only other thing I can suggest is from another db, see if you can link to it. If you can't then your data will be lost. There may be companies out there who might be able to recover the data for you but I can't recommend one.

This is true -- The back end contains relevant data for their job, and then stores their own work and doesn't share between other nurses. We had two different backup setups for this back end, and they both failed earlier in the month. Go figure. I guess I was hoping it would be possible to access cached data somehow, but at this point it's looking like I'll just inform the nurse and our payroll department that it's a wash. Thanks for the help, everyone.

[davegri]

If the laptops have Windows File History turned on, several back copies of the FE and BE should be available for recovery.