Don't lose your data. Let's get it back.

What you do in the first hour matters more than anything I do later. If the file was deleted or has stopped opening, stop working in that folder, and don't let anyone "try things" against the original file. Recovery attempts on the only copy are how a recoverable database becomes an unrecoverable one. Every recovery I perform runs against a duplicate, and the original stays untouched as the fallback.

When a file has vanished from a network share, more copies usually exist than anyone realizes. Windows shadow copies (the "Previous Versions" tab on the folder), the server's backup cycle, a copy on the laptop of whoever built the last report, the .accdb attached to an old email. Part of my job is a systematic hunt through those before any recovery tools come out, because an intact copy from last Tuesday almost always beats a partial reconstruction of today's file.

When the file exists but won't open, "Unrecognized database format" being the classic message, the path depends on what's actually damaged. Sometimes the data pages are fine and only the VBA project is broken; creating a fresh database and importing every table, query, form, and report into it brings back nearly everything. Other times specific tables took the hit, and the salvage goes object by object: pull what imports cleanly, read around the damaged rows with filtered queries, then reconstruct the remainder from exports, reports, or paper records. You get told exactly what came back and what didn't before signing off, not after.

If you're reaching out about a recovery, three details let me give you a realistic assessment on the first call: the exact error message (a photo of the screen is fine), the file's size and last-modified date as Explorer shows them, and whether any copy of the file exists anywhere else, however old. With those I can usually tell you the same day whether this looks like an hours job, a days job, or a case where we should be hunting backups instead of repairing.

Then there's the recurrence question. Nearly every recovery case I take has the same backstory: one copy of an important file, no automatic backups, sitting on a machine or share nobody was watching. Setting up a nightly backup rotation takes an evening and turns the next incident from a crisis into an inconvenience, so I treat it as part of the recovery, not an optional extra.