system.mdb missing

K

Ken->

My system crashed and I had to reinstall Windows 2000 and also reinstall
Office 2000. Now when I start Access it says that system.mdb is missing and
is needed for startup but there is a file named system.mdb in the program
files/common/system folder.
What must I do to make it work again?
Thanks.
Ken
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Ken-> said:
My system crashed and I had to reinstall Windows 2000 and also
reinstall Office 2000. Now when I start Access it says that
system.mdb is missing and is needed for startup but there is a file
named system.mdb in the program files/common/system folder.
What must I do to make it work again?
Thanks.
Ken
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about a "system.mdb" file, but could it perhaps be
the "system.mdw" file that it can't find? If that's it, it may be that
you need to run the Workgroup Adminstrator program and explicitly join
the workgroup that is represented by that "system.mdw" file. Try
locating and running the file "WRKGADM.EXE", and using it to join that
system.mdw file you found.
 
K

Ken->

Thanks Dick, You were right about it being the mdw file instead of mdb file.
I found WRKGADM.EXE in c:\program files\microsoft office\office\1033 but
when I try to run it by just double clicking on it I get a message box with
workgroup adminstrator in the title bar saying it can't open the registry
database.
I can't seem to run it from start/run either so I tried from the console and
changed directorys to where wrkgadm.exe was and used the path and name of
the mdw file as an argument and still got the message box.
Ken
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Ken-> said:
Thanks Dick, You were right about it being the mdw file instead of
mdb file. I found WRKGADM.EXE in c:\program files\microsoft
office\office\1033 but when I try to run it by just double clicking
on it I get a message box with workgroup adminstrator in the title
bar saying it can't open the registry database.
I can't seem to run it from start/run either so I tried from the
console and changed directorys to where wrkgadm.exe was and used the
path and name of the mdw file as an argument and still got the
message box.
Click to expand...

Hmm, sounds to me like your system registry may be damaged. If you'll
post the exact error message, I'll see if I can find anything in the
Microsoft KnowledgeBase (http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1)
about it. You can probably use Ctrl+C to copy the message to the
clipboard, and Ctrl+V to paste it into a message.

You may need to repair or reinstall either Windows 2000 or Office 2000,
or both. This is not my area of expertise, though, so I don't want to
put you through all that unless its really necessary.
 
K

Ken->

Dick,
It just dings at me when I try the Ctrl-C, but here is the error message
enclosed in quotes:
"Can't open registry database."
The title bar has "Workgroup Admisistrator" and the icon is a yellow
triangle with an explanation point.
And I have already reinstalled Windows 2000 and Microsoft Office. I
unfortunately either didn't make an emergency repair disk or if I did I
can't find it.
There are a few other strange things still happening on this machine so I
may have to just start from a clean disk. I'm afraid you are right about the
registry being damaged.
Thanks for your help, but I don't think now that there is any hope of
recovering. Fortunately, the data was backed up.
Ken
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Ken-> said:
Dick,
It just dings at me when I try the Ctrl-C, but here is the error
message enclosed in quotes:
"Can't open registry database."
The title bar has "Workgroup Admisistrator" and the icon is a yellow
triangle with an explanation point.
And I have already reinstalled Windows 2000 and Microsoft Office. I
unfortunately either didn't make an emergency repair disk or if I did
I can't find it.
There are a few other strange things still happening on this machine
so I may have to just start from a clean disk. I'm afraid you are
right about the registry being damaged.
Thanks for your help, but I don't think now that there is any hope of
recovering. Fortunately, the data was backed up.
Click to expand...

There may yet be hope! I found this article in the Microsoft
KnowledgeBase, by searching on "open registry database":

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;815285
ACC2000: "Can't Open Registry Database" Error Message Occurs When
You Run the Workgroup Administrator Utility

The article describes exactly the symptoms you reported, and tells you
to first *completely remove* Office 2000, then reinstall it. The
article contains a link to instructions for how to do it.

Good luck!
 
K

Ken->

Thanks Dirk,
(I just now saw that the third character is an r instead of the c I have
been using, sorry)
It looks like I'm not the first person with this symptom. It is quarter of
midnight here so I'm going to wait until morning to try this when hopefully
my head is clearer.
Ken
 
K

Ken->

Well, I removed office and ran the eraser2000 utility and reinstalled office
and the symtoms are exactly the same.
I am defeated.
Ken
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Ken-> said:
Well, I removed office and ran the eraser2000 utility and reinstalled
office and the symtoms are exactly the same.
I am defeated.
Click to expand...

That's really bad news, Ken. I don't know anything else to suggest,
short of <shudder> backing up all your documents and settings, wiping
your disk, and reinstalling Windows 2000 and Office 2000. You might
open a problem ticket with Microsoft Product Support.
 
J

Jim Carlock

Just passing along a thought.

If you seem to run into a file that is a little messed up, there are
a couple of things to try:

1) Copy the problem file to another folder then copy it back to
the original folder.
2) Move the problem file to another folder, restart access and
see if you get the same error.
3) If that doesn't work, make sure the file is moved to another
folder and then reinstall Access or Office. The reinstallation
should put the missing file into place at this point. Sometimes
uninstalling doesn't delete every file that was installed.

There is a problem with MS installation routines where during
reinstalls, where if it detects there a file on the hard disk, it
simply checks maybe the date and/or version and if they match,
the installation skips overwriting the file. I believe there are a lot
of Microsoft installations that do this. I reported the problem to
Microsoft in 1994 and I'm not sure they ever fixed it. :)

--
Jim Carlock
Post replies to newsgroup.

Ken-> said:
Well, I removed office and ran the eraser2000 utility and reinstalled
office and the symtoms are exactly the same.
I am defeated.
Click to expand...

That's really bad news, Ken. I don't know anything else to suggest,
short of <shudder> backing up all your documents and settings, wiping
your disk, and reinstalling Windows 2000 and Office 2000. You might
open a problem ticket with Microsoft Product Support.
 
K

Ken->

Great News! I tried what you suggested but that didn't change anything.
However it made me look on the CD to see where they had the SYSTEM.MDW file
located and it was in the E:\PFILES\MSOFFICE\OFFICE directory so I copied it
from there to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office and things now work.
The original file was in C:\Program Files\Common Files\SYSTEM
I'm going to leave the original one renamed to see what fails.
Thanks everyone for your help on this.
Ken
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Ken-> said:
Great News! I tried what you suggested but that didn't change
anything. However it made me look on the CD to see where they had the
SYSTEM.MDW file located and it was in the E:\PFILES\MSOFFICE\OFFICE
directory so I copied it from there to C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office and things now work. The original file was in
C:\Program Files\Common Files\SYSTEM
I'm going to leave the original one renamed to see what fails.
Thanks everyone for your help on this.
Click to expand...

Terrific! That's a darn sight better than wiping and reinstalling.
 
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