Erased Queries when Compacting

[Melanie]

A coworker of mine was receiving strange error messages in his database. When he tried to compact the database it erased his queries.

Does anybody have an explanation as far as why that would happen. He is currently having the file restored from last night.

I am guessing that the file was somehow corrupted.

Thanks.

 

[mdmilner]

That would be my guess, although it could have been a storage issue.
Default MS Office saving behavior is to:

Create a copy (saved with a temporary name)
Delete the original
Rename the copy to the name of the original

Compacting is similar:

Create a Copy
Compact the Copy
Delete the Original
Rename the copy to the Original name

If enough space wasn't available for another complete copy of the database, the operation could fail. I'm thinking the correct clue is in the exact text of the error messages he was getting before compacting.

Mike