Q123589 ACC2: Error Message "Couldn't Open SYSTEM.MDA".

Symptoms

When starting Access, you get the errors:

“Couldn't open SYSTEM.MDA”

“<Database> is corrupted or is not a database file. Attempt to repair?”

Cause

The Jet database engine version 2.0 may wrongly leave an internal database flag set that in some cases results in one of the error messages stated above.

Resolution

To reset the internal database flag you need to have all users log out then run the repair utility. If you get "Couldn't open SYSTEM.MDA", all users should quit Access. When a user logs in again, the SYSTEM.MDA file will be repaired automatically. No data will have been lost.