How to repair DBF file corrupted by Power Failure?

Published by Jacob Martin on January 21, 2014

DBF stands for DataBase File. It is the file format which is used by the database software. It can be used by MS FoxPro database application that contains ‘dbf’ extension which is known as a standard database file. Database file is used to store data in a tabular format. It provides many features to manipulate data in an efficient manner. These files can be opened through Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access. It can conduct any type of data modification operation such as removing data, fetching data from the database, storing data and removing data using database application that is done on the data that is stored in to the database file. It provides data redundancy, multiple views of data, provides security to data, data sharing, concurrency control, data independence, and even provides keys (primary key, secondary key, foreign key) facility that help to protect data duplication.

All kind of data modifying operations like to store data, fetching data from data base, removing data and data editing task by using any database application that are actually done on the data that stored in to a database file. We can say that the dbf file is actually a data storage file that stores data in an efficient way. DBF file is popular because it provides many features and protection to the data stored in it such as it provides data redundancy, multiple views of data, provides security to data, data sharing, data independence, concurrency control, it provides many key (primary key, secondary key, foreign key) facility that help to protect data duplication.

Sudden power failure can result the DBF files to corrupt. The corrupted DBF file becomes useless due to corruption and the data stored in it becomes inaccessible. Same thing happened with me when I was using DataBase files and there was a sudden power failure as a result I was not able to open or access my corrupted DBF file And whenever I was trying to open the corrupted DBF file instead some error messages were shown on the screen such as-

·         Invalid database – please validate database”.

• “Error 1103 or Invalid Seek Offset (ISO) error”.
• “Memo File is Missing/Invalid”.
• “ERROR [42S02] [Microsoft][ODBC Visual FoxPro Driver] File ‘table.dbf’ does not exist”.
• “Table …has become corrupted. The table will need to be repaired before using again.” “(Error-2091)”.
• “Error instantiating cursor objects. Could not find (table file name)”.
• “Filename.dbf has become corrupted”.
• “Unable to get header”.
• “Table dBase not correct”

DBF is highly popular due to its wide availability. But it gets corrupted due to several reasons among them on of the reason for the corruption is power failure.

• Sudden power failure can cause unexpected or sudden cancellation of visual FoxPro application which leads to the corruption of DBF.
•  Due to the power failure the file does not get saved and hence the file gets damaged and gets corrupted.
•  Due to power failure the file does not conduct or execute properly as a result DBF file gets corrupted.
• While creating or copying DBF file from other computers power gets off then the system gets failed and the DBF files get corrupted.

The corrupted DBF file can’t be repair until you don’t have backup files for it. When the DBF file gets corrupted the users can re-install the database application to open the file in that newly installed application, because sometimes the problem may occur with the bad or unsupported applications. But if this solution does not work and even the DBF backup is not available then you can only recover your data by using third party software DBF File Repair Tool. This recovery tool is very effective for recovering corrupt database files without damaging any data. It provides you with easy user interface that helps even the non-technical people can use this tool to recover their lost data. It even helps you to recover all the components including column name, table name, and data types of all candidate key, foreign key, Indexes, primary key, columns, Binary indexes, unique key, and regular key.