[DXBase] Corrupted Database

[Art Searle W2NRA]

Hi Dale,

I don't know what could have caused the problem.

However, I do have a suggestion.  I never delete pirates.
This is my station log and it is someone I worked.  It could
be determined to be real at some time in the future.  I do
remember that happening many times with contacts that were
ruled invalid and later reversed.  And I thought for sure
some were slims.  Here are just some examples that later
became good QSLs: 6O0DX, A6XJC, G3JKI/5A, DJ6SI/T5.  If, as
dxers our motto is WFWL [Work'em First, Worry Later] it
follows that we HAVE TO leave them in the log.  Instead of
deleting go the "Valid" column and uncheck both boxes.  I've
still got P5RS7 in my log.

73,
Art

W2NRA

> Today when I started DxBase 2004 I got the message saying
DxBase was not
> properly shutdown which I did not expect since, as far as
I knew, the last
> time (last night) I shutdown DxBase it was a normal
shutdown.  I went ahead
> and initialized the tables anyway.
>
> When trying to initialize the tables I immediately got a
message that said
> it could not find the CQ zone data for 1A0KM. I clicked OK
and it proceeded
> to repeat many times for what looked like what was going
to be every QSO in
> the log.  At that point I bailed out of DxBase with
Windows Task Manager.
>
> I opened my AA1QD.mdb file with Microsoft Access and
discovered the CQ-Zone
> table entries all showed "DELETED".  I knew that was not
good!
>
> Fortunately I had a back up copy, from 2 days before, of
my mdb file that I
> was able to successfully restore.
>
> When I think back to what may have caused this problem,
the only thing I
> had done to affect the mdb file last night was that I
deleted a QSO with
> 1A0KM that I had determined to have been a pirate.  I
don't know if the
> fact that 1A0KM was also the first entry in the CQ-Zone
table had anything
> to do with this or not. I suspect not.
>
> After I restored the mdb file from my backed up copy I
deleted that same
> 1A0KM QSO again with apparently no problem (I exited and
restarted DxBase
> successfully and the initialize tables function ran fine).
>
> I have never had a problem like this before. I recently
loaded the patch
> for the telnet hang up fix. I'm running Windows XP home
edition.  DxBase
> 2004 has been very stable in the past, in fact, perfectly
stable.
>
> Has anyone seen anything like this before or have any
ideas why it may have
> happened?
>
> I was lucky that I had the recent backup. With over 28K
QSO's in that file
> it would have been a night mare to try to restore that
manually! You can
> bet I'm going to be very careful about backing up the data
before making
> future deletions etc.
>
> Dale, AA1QD