Computer geeks help required asap please

[Blue Rose]

Hi there,

I've had a friend doing my database for me on access with my laptop (other one than this).

Things have gone pear shaped between us recently & after getting my laptop back today, I've tried to access the client details but to no avail.

I've texted her to see how to access them them & this is the text I got back "I told you there were problems with it didn't I.[yes she did, a couple of months ago]. Had to contact microsoft and they said it was the software not being installed correctly and the file was corrupted. I downloaded a fix but obviously doesn't fix it for long sorry"

I'm getting in a bit (well quite a lot actually) of a panic now as I've paid her quite a bit in the past 3-4 months to do this for me (as well as other admin jobs). Am I being suspicious in thinking she may have deleted all the files or could she be correct in there being a computer problem?

I'd really appreciate some answers asap as she had her last pay check today & if she probably did delete the files (which would take HOURS to re-do) then I could perhaps cancel this last check.

Prompt advice much appreciated.

 

[Minipig007]

errm... well if a file corrupted, it's corrupted and thats that. You can't really download a fix that would "fix" the problem for a few hours or so - you're either able to recover the file or you're not from my understanding.

i'll get my other half who is the biggest computer geek i know.... i'll ask him what he thinks.

Ok - he says:
It should be a .mdb file
If it's been added to for the last few months with client details then it should be a fair size - a few hundred kb at least.
If you want to email the file to him, pm me and i'll ping you his email address. He'll have a look at the file for you and see what he thinks. Naturally all info will be kept uber confidential.

 

[Blue Rose]

Thanks Katrina,

Have pm'd you

 

[Ruth Mills]

Hmm, suspicious! Think I'll let Minipig's other half deal with this, as I'm not a major Microsoft expert (Java's my thing).

In terms of databases, one that I would heartily recommend though is eXist, Open Source Native XML Database - it stores XML documents and supports XQuery for querying them, and you can also back up your database to a Zip file containing all your documents.

Since XML is human-readable, there's a lot less chance of you irreplacably losing your data than the obscure binary format that Access probably uses...

 

[vicki@icomplete]

I hope you managed to get all your data back. This is a definite worry for all businesses, loosing important valuable data!

To help this from happening in the future why not consider using the new technology ‘Software as a Service’. This means you can use salon software from the internet and all your data is securely stored on line and you will never have the same problem again!

 

[Blue Rose]

I think I may have said on my other thread about this, but the data wasn't recovered as it was never done in the 1st place. My 'friend' was having me on. Now trying to get the wages I paid her reimbursed.

 

[dingbat]

Always back up your files regulary. My husband is a computer consultant, and runs his own business and tells me Back up. I still don't know half the things he does I just go oh yeah
Hope you get it sorted:hug: