Troubleshoot compacting, repairing or recovering an Access file

Microsoft Office Access 2003

You can't compact an Access file if any of the following are true.

  • You don't have enough storage space on your disk for both the original and compacted versions of the Access database or Access project. Delete any unneeded files and try again.
  • You don't have both Open/Run and Open Exclusive permissions for the Access database. If you don't own this database, contact its owner to find out whether you can be given these permissions. If you own this database, you need to update your permissions.
  • Another user has the Access database or Access project open.
  • The Access database or Access project is located on a read-only network share, or its file attribute is set to Read Only.

ShowCompacting an Access file removes the NTFS file permissions.

When you compact a Microsoft Access file located on a volume that uses the NTFS file system, Access removes the existing file and replaces it with the compacted file. It then applies the default file permissions to the new file.

If the file is an Access database, use Access user-level security instead of file-level permissions. Otherwise, use folder permissions. For more information about the NTFS file system and folder permissions, see Windows Help.

ShowA log file was created during recovery of an Access file.

After the occurrence of a serious problem such as an unexpected shutdown, if any objects in a Microsoft Access file are deleted or recovered when a Access backs up and recovers the file, Access records this information in a log file with the name <DestinationFile.log>, where DestinationFile is the name of the new file.