shrug-l: Retrieving a Tool box from a dead File Geodatabase

[Griffin, Jason A.]

I'm not sure how many of you out there have had a file geodatabase die on you, but it can be fairly traumatic.  :-(  Particularly so, if you are working on models/tools, and especially when you just got that last step to work, and you haven't been diligently creating back-up copies of your data.

Before you swear off everything and delete your broken file geodatabase please give this a try:  Create a new file geodatabase and add a toolbox named the same as your previous database's toolbox.  Next, open up your new file geodatabase using windows explorer, select all of the files in the directory, right-click and copy, and then open up your broken geodatabase, and right-click and paste.  If you get a warning message saying that the file you are pasting already exists, choose the option to skip that file and repeat as necessary (Approximately five files in my case were successfully copied in my case).  Hopefully, if your database wasn't too far gone, you should be able to go back into ArcMap and extract your toolbox with all of your models intact.

...Theoretically, this could work for resurrecting feature classes as well,

Best of luck!

Jason A. Griffin
727-600-6634 Cell


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