dbf is not a table

[AlastairP]

I have 3 x corrupted tables giving me the message "<tablename>.dbf is not a table"

What options do I have for any kind of data recovery or potential fix?
I tried to fix the header as I have done in the past when I get a " Table is Corrupted" error but this had no effect.

I have recent backups but there have been a number of changes since then. I would really like to be able to get any of the data, which would be a great help to update the backup.

With regards
Alastair

 

[Mike Lewis]

You can use the excellent HxD program, as mentioned by Mike,

That's true. I forgot to mention that HxD can be used to view raw disk sectors. And you can search the sectors for particular strings that you know occur in your data. It would be a slow and laborious process to try to recover an entire file that way, but it might be of some limited help.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

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[Olaf Doschke]

AFAIK freed sectors are the ones used up first by new files, to counteract fragmentation. So not using the drive would be essential and rarely is the case in a shared drive.

Then on the other side a) I might be wrong about that and b) if the drive is SSD, the wear-leveling strategy used for SSD drives will mean that blocks freed for any reason will not be the first blocks reused because that would wear them.

The question is how valuable this data is, whether it pays to hunt it down. What if you only find it partially, the usual concern of a database also covers consistency and usually a data item, a complete entity will be spread across multiple records of multiple dbfs.

There are good chances to recover full files, but that would not cover your case of a file with size 0, but missing files removed from the TOC of the file system. You might ask cautiously, if someone, who accidentally deleted files created empty new files to cover up their accident, then the real DBFs are deleted and could be found and recovered with a higher chance, though the reuse of blocks remains a problem, you have a starting point and actually really a pointer to the first file block, which in turn points to the next and so forth until the end block of a file.

Tools finding and recovering deleted files also exist. Just google "recover deleted files" and you'll find something. I can't recommend something, the one time I needed that was way back on Win 3.11 and I don't even remember the name, but googling I find many tools, also free.

Also: Did you look out for .BAK/.TBK files?

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[AlastairP]

Hi Olaf,
I did not find any BAK or TBK files for those tables. Yes it is an SSD and it has not been used since the error. So maybe there is a chance of file recovery, I will look into it. I have also used file recovery software in the pass to recover deleted files so that may have some merit. I don't think this was malicious damage.

Alastair

 

[Olaf Doschke]

I didn't say "accidental", I really mean accidental. But after someone makes a mistake it's not rare he tries to cover up.

Bye, Olaf.

Olaf Doschke Software Engineering

https://www.doschke.name

 

[farzad321]

Hi AlastairP

I have a software that repair any type of DBF. you can mail me and attach one of your corrupted file. If i can fix the problem I send you back the result file. But I can not type my email address !!!

So you can upload your file anywhere you trust and then send link[highlight #FCE94F][/highlight] here.

this software tested and worked 100 time[highlight #204A87][/highlight] for me without any problem.

 

[GriffMG]

Hi Farzad,

I think AlastairP is saying the files are completely empty - so there is nothing left to recover.

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm trying to cut down on the use of shrieks (exclamation marks), I'm told they are !good for you. ​

 

[farzad321]

Hi
thanks griff , all right BUT the file size is equal to 16 MB , therefore maybe something be left in database, but if in HEX EDITOR anythings can't be seen , we can not do anythings. The only certain way is TESTING in repair programs.
farzad

 

[Mike Lewis]

Farzad, it looks to me that Alastair has proved pretty conclusively that the file is empty. It's always worth another shot, of course, but I would doubt that any of it would be recoverable.

That's no reflection on your own software, of course. You did well to tell us about it.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads