Unable to compact and repair

[mike]

I am having a difficult time compacting a db in Access
2002-SP2. The file size is 2,095,108 which I guess is the
maximum for Access '02. Anyways, when I try to compact
and repair, I get an error that says "INVALID ARGUMENT",
and when I click on help, I get no assistance. I have
experienced this in the past, and compacting the db seems
to resolve the problem. I have even attempted deleting
all tables (other than the big one), queries, macros and
even deleted some records, but I still get this error.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Tony Toews]

I am having a difficult time compacting a db in Access
2002-SP2. The file size is 2,095,108 which I guess is the
maximum for Access '02.

Yes, it is.

Anyways, when I try to compact
and repair, I get an error that says "INVALID ARGUMENT",

From my page on this topic
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/corruption/symptoms.htm and down
about 2/3rds of the way. There are embedded links in that paragraph.

"3001 - Invalid argument. This one typically happens when clicking on
a corrupted record within a table. Or by running a query or form
against that record. All the fields show #Error. See Damaged
record(s) within tables. Another cause may be missing Access 2000
SR-1 if you are trying to "import data, copy a table, or run an append
query." Also see You may receive an "Invalid argument" error message
when you run an append query in a large Access database file - 835416
which states that your MDB may be approaching the size limit."

You may have a lot of difficulty with this. First thing I'd try is
importing the objects into a new MDB. I don't even know if that will
work. You could also try JetComp. See my retrieving data pages for
more info on that topic.

However a few newsgroup postings in the past have indicated they had
extreme difficulty retrieving the data. Please keep us posting as to
what works and doesn't work for you.

Also feel free to email me on this at tony at granite dot ab dot ca as
I check my email more often than the newsgroups.

Finally do you have any idea as to what made this MDB so large? Lots
of record inserts, deletes, graphics or ???? But we can deal with
that later.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Mike]

Hello and thanks for your response to my access problem.
I want to address some of your comments:

1) db size, my db size is due to records (I am working
with more than 7M records in a single table)
2) Records problems: I don't believe this is my problem as
the records are clean
3) Solutions: when this has happened in the past, I have
been able to delete a bunch of records, not with a query
but rather by selecting a couple of thousand records and
pressing the delete key. This is not working in this
case. So I tried using the Tools/Database
Utilities/Database Splitter function which recreated my
table into a new database. This in turn is smaller so I
am able to compact/repair and work with my db again )

I want to offer one more thought about the error messages,
why is it that Microsoft errors are so generic and
generally do not offer any insight into the problem at
hand? I have had this difficulties countless times in the
past. Maybe there is a better source for help????

Thanks for your insight and your time!