How To Solve 'This Is A Corrupted Or Damaged QuickBooks Database' Error?

Intuit QuickBooks is often used in multi-user and networked environment and so, results in frequent errors. To add, the lack of resilience in its conventional database format,.QBW file, makes it difficult to determine the file corruption. Quite often, the files are corrupted much before they are detected by QuickBooks. Following the occurrence of error message, such situations generally require an easy-to-apply QuickBook Recovery solution.

As an example, you might encounter the below error message while trying to open/access a QuickBooks database:

"This is a corrupted or damaged QuickBooks database"

In order to solve such issues, refer to next section.

Fixing the Issue

These errors can sometimes appear because of a network or drive issue and not because of corruption with file itself. To confirm, you should run the Verify Data utility, which is available in 'File' menu. Make sure you click on 'Close Company/Logoff' first. In case of corruption issues, QuickBooks reports 'Data has lost integrity' message. If you get this message, continue to repair the file.

To repair the file, you need to run Rebuild. But before running this utility, you are suggested to consider these points:
1. If the file is stored on a networked drive, copy it to a local drive
2. Make sure that no items (Customer Names, Account, etc.) are hidden

You can now run the Rebuild utility. It is available in 'File' menu. The utility prompts you to backup the affected file.

After running the Rebuild, you need to rerun the Verify Data utility. However, it should be performed post renaming the QuickBooks log (QBWIN.LOG) file. This file is located in installation folder of QuickBooks.

More Information

Since.QBW is a poorly designed database format, you might end up with no success repairing the file using Rebuild. In such situations, it is advised to switch to third-party QuickBooks Recovery tools. Designed to run powerful, safe, and high-end scanning algorithms, these QuickBook File Recovery solutions work as a one-hit solution to all.QBW file corruption problems.

Applies to

• Intuit QuickBooks 2010
• Intuit QuickBooks 2009
• Intuit QuickBooks 2008
• Intuit QuickBooks 2007