You can check to see if a database has been damaged. Generally, this is rare but occasionally a file can be damaged from disk problems, errant programs lost file links or other situations. Checking file integrity is similar to a "Check Disk" in Microsoft Windows.
In addition to checking for damage, checking file integrity will tell you if you can improve efficiency by squeezing the database. However, it is usually faster just to squeeze the database than to check for it.
Checking file integrity is a thorough and comprehensive process, so it will take time.
To check the integrity of an HEC-DSS file:
1.Open an HEC-DSS file, from the Tools menu, click Check File Integrity.
2. For larger files, the Database Integrity Check dialog box (below) will open providing the status of the operation. There are four major steps in the operation. You can cancel at anytime without hurting anything. Generally, the process goes faster once the first step has been completed.
3.A status report message window will open (below) after the integrity check has finished. To view the integrity report, click View Log.
4.If any errors in the database are detected, a message window saying so will be displayed. Due to the comprehensive nature of the check, an error is usually reported for several processes within the check, so the total number of errors reported can be substantially more than there really are.
If an error is detected, it is recommended that you make a backup of your file and then squeeze the file. Squeezing rebuilds the file, using a brute force approach that should retrieve all data possible within the file. You should review any critical data after you have squeezed it, as the same event that broke links within the file may have changed data values also.
5.If you have a lot of unused space due to deletions or other actions or the internal tables are not suited well to the number of data sets, a message will be displayed saying so. It is recommended that you squeeze the file to remove unused space and rebuild the internal tables.