REALLY need your help!

[mycarmats]

Hi All

I have no idea what I've done wrong but I really need some advice.

Site in question is www.mycarmats.co.uk

Basically, I decided to mass-edit a range of products by editing the ActinicCatalog.mdb file in the Site1 folder.

Strange thing was that I noticed that the data in the product table was out of date, in fact it was exactly how the site would have been 3 weeks ago when I last backed up my site, but it didnt reflect any changes I made within Actinic since then.

Like an idiot I started editing without backing up the data. I altered the data in the tables but for some reason Actinic acted as if I hadnt done anything, and wouldnt recognise any changes I made. I then compacted the database within Actinic, and all of my product information and orders reverted back to the date of my last backup. In other words I lost 3 weeks of work.

Is there any way I can get this back? The thing that is bothering me is that the up to date data had to be held SOMEWHERE on my hard drive, otherwise where did Actinic obtain it from? I've scanned my hard drive for another .mdb file but I cant find anything.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[Duncan Rounding]

If you have searched your hard drive (when logged on as admin so as to search all users) and you can't find any other mdb files or snapshots then you have most likely lost what you did.

Perhaps you had items marked for deletion which after you'd editing and compacting were permanently removed.

I'm afraid all you can probably do is to learn from your mistake and make regular backups and snapshots, especially before editing directly in Access.

[Mike Hughes]

This one's a bit of a mystery really.

I don't think Actinic is clever enough to ignore changes that have been made in the database or to auto-recover to an older version when it hits problems.

This sort of suggests that either the edits were made to a copy of the database or an older snapshot was imported somehow.

Are you sure you didn't make a copy of the database somewhere and edit that one with your changes? That would have been the smart way to do it and could explain at least some of the symptoms.

Other than that I suspect there must be another copy of the database somewhere. The usual places would be backup folders or in your 'my documents' folder if you're using vista / windows 7.

Mike

[mycarmats]

Hi, thanks for your comments.

I have scanned the entire hard drive and there is definitely no other version of the database file on my PC. I'm in the process of biting the dust and re-inputting all of the lost data (will back it up this time)!

I think the problem is that for whatever reason, the database wasn't updating itself with changes made within Actinic. Is this even possible? Are changes made in Actinic supposed to instantaneously update the .mdb file?

Final question so I dont make the same mistake twice.......

What exactly happens when you compact the database within Actinic? Am I right in thinking that the active database file becomes a copy of your last backup file?

Bizarrely, when I compacted the database before (the time that caused the problem), the compacted database file was MUCH smaller than the original, i.e 20% of the size.

Any ideas?

[Duncan Rounding]

...Is this even possible?

No.

...Are changes made in Actinic supposed to instantaneously update the .mdb file?

Yes.

...What exactly happens when you compact the database within Actinic? Am I right in thinking that the active database file becomes a copy of your last backup file?

Data marked for deletion (with a red cross through it) will be permanently deleted form the database. Prior to that the data can be undeleted. The database does not become a copy of the original (except temporarily whilst compacting). If you want to backup the database and create a copy you can do so from the menus or when closing down Actinic.

...the compacted database file was MUCH smaller than the original, i.e 20% of the size...

This is certainly possible if you have been making changes in the database and is a reason why compacting is so important.