Many Excel users believe that Microsoft Access is a highly powerful database that is difficult to use and hence make do with spreadsheets even for their database purposes. By understanding what the difference between a database and a list is as also how easy it is to use Microsoft Access, users can manage their data more effectively.
It is very surprising that a large number of Microsoft Office users prefer to use Excel to handle large amounts of data even though they know that they can just as easily use Access to manage the data. Many are under the impression that Microsoft Access is very powerful software that is not easy to use or that it will take a long time for them to learn. The truth on the other hand, is that Access is not only a very user-friendly database application but also scales exceedingly well. You can just as easily use it to manage customers, sales and inventory of your business and to build a database of your home collection of CDs and DVDs. Microsoft Access helps you to easily create a MDB database file, enter data into it, retrieve the data quickly and summarize it for various purposes. Of course, along with these benefits there is always the danger that if the file gets corrupted, you might end losing all the data unless you have a way of carrying out effective MDB repair.
If you are not sure whether you need to maintain your data in a database or a simple list, here are a few tips that will help. If your data is complex, changes quite often and you are required to combine data from various files, then quite obviously a database is what you need. Microsoft Access will give you true command over your data, allowing you to analyze it, create a summary and a report all in a matter of minutes. Data entry, retrieval and analysis are all more efficient and accurate with the help of MDB files. Access typically stores the data in the form of relational databases so that the data is related and depending on how you want to select the data, can quickly bring the data together.
Given that you might want to store fairly important and even confidential data in the MDB files, it is important to ensure that the data stored in the file is protected at all times. According to Microsoft, it is best to compact and carry out an MDB repair on a regular basis to ensure that Access is performing at optimal levels. It is also possible that even as you are working with an MDB file, you face a problem. In such a case, Access will first try to immediately recover the file. If that proves difficult, you will get a message that the repair operation was cancelled and that a Compact and Repair operation should be carried out.
Corruption in MS Access MDB files occur due to factors such as sudden power surges, premature shut down of system and also because of poor database design. Many of these factors cause the database to become unstable and thus get corrupted. If your MDB file is found to be corrupted despite the preventive measures that you have taken, quickly use a specialized tool such as DataNumen Access Repair from DataNumen to scan the corrupt file and carry out an MDB repair. DataNumen Access Repair is capable of fixing fairly large MDB files so that data loss is minimized.