ACC: How to Recover a Table Deleted from a Database

This article shows you how to create a sample Visual Basic for Applications function that you can use to recover a table deleted from a Microsoft Access for Windows 95 and Microsoft Access 97 database under the following conditions:

• The database has not been closed since the deletion of the table.
• The database has not been compacted since the deletion of the table.
• The table was deleted using the Microsoft Access user interface.

NOTE: If multiple tables have inadvertently been deleted, this function recovers only the last table that was deleted. The other tables are lost.
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The following sample function recovers the last table deleted within a Microsoft Access database. To create the sample function, follow these steps.

NOTE: These steps assume that you are creating the sample function for future use. If instead you are adding the code directly to a database in which a table has recently been deleted, skip step 1, because if you have closed Microsoft Access or the database, the deleted table is not recoverable.

1. Open your database in Microsoft Access.
2. In the Database window, click the Modules tab, and then click New.
3. Type or paste the following code in the module that you have just created:
   
   NOTE: In the following sample code, an underscore (_) at the end of a line is used as a line-continuation character indicates that the code continues from one line to the next. You can type lines that contain this character as one logical line or you can divide the lines of code and include the line continuation character. For additional information refer to the Microsoft Access 97 Readme File(Acread80.wri). This file is installed by default in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office folder.

       Function undo()
   
         Dim db As Database, strTablename As String
         Dim i As Integer, StrSqlString As String
   
         Set db = CurrentDb()
   
         For i = 0 To db.TableDefs.Count - 1
   
         If Left(db.TableDefs(i).Name, 4) = "~tmp" Then
            strTablename = db.TableDefs(i).Name
            StrSqlString = "SELECT DISTINCTROW [" & strTablename & _
              "].* INTO MyUndeletedTable FROM [" & strTablename & "];"
            DoCmd.SetWarnings False
            DoCmd.RunSQL StrSqlString
            DoCmd.SetWarnings True
            MsgBox "A table has been restored as MyUndeletedTable", _
              vbOKOnly,"Restored"
            GoTo Exit_undo
         End If
         Next i
         MsgBox "No Recoverable Tables Found", vbOKOnly, "Not Found"
   
         Exit_undo:
            Set db = Nothing
            Exit Function
         Err_undo:
            MsgBox Err.Description
            Resume Exit_undo
   
       End Function
   					

4. On the Debug menu, click "Compile and Save All Modules" (or in Microsoft Access for Windows 95, on the Run menu click "Compile All Modules"; then on the File menu, click "Save All Modules").
5. Save the Module as RecoverTable.
   
   To test this function, type the following line in the Debug window, and then press ENTER:

   ?Undo()
   					

For more information about TableDefs, search the Help Index for "Tabledef Object."