A dBase header file structure is divide into various bytes, each saving some critical information about the file. Corruption in the header file structure can occur due to various reasons, like improper system shutdown, virus infection, modification in hex-editor, and application malfunction. After the file header gets corrupted due to any of the above reasons, the file becomes unreadable. Moreover, a user encounters an error message while opening the file. To overcome DBF file header corruption, restore the file from a copy of its valid backup. However, in case of no backup or backup file restoring incomplete data, the dBase user needs to repair the corrupted DBF file. To effectively do so, the user needs to use a third-party DBF File Repair application.

To illustrate the above case, consider, you encounter the below error message while attempting to access a DBF file created in dBase V:

“Unable to get header”

After the above error message pops up, the data saved in the file becomes inaccessible. In addition, the error message pops up every time you try to access the DBF file.

Cause:

The fundamental reason for the above error message is corruption of DBF file.

Resolution:

To surmount the above error message and to overcome dBase file corruption, you need to take underneath actions:

• Perform restoration from an up-to-date backup file.

• However, if in the absence of a valid DBF backup file, you need to repair the DBF file by employing a commercial DBF Repair utility.

A DBF File Repair application uses advanced, yet safe repair techniques to systematically repair logically damaged DBF files. The tool ensures that the original data saved in the DBF file remains intact and does not get modified during repair process. Such repair utilities are built with interactive user-interface that makes them self-explanatory and user-friendly.

DBF Recovery Software is a superb tool that is used to repair corrupted DBF files (created in dBase III, dBase IV, and dBase V, MS Visual FoxPro 7.0, MS Visual FoxPro 8.0, MS Visual FoxPro 9.0), irrespective of their cause of corruption. The DBF Repair application creates a new DBF file in which all the data that is extracted from the corrupt database is saved. This read only software does not modify the original file, and can be installed on Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000.