Computer freeze, lost data

[Eljefegeneo]

We have a MS Access 2010 DB, split, back end on server, front end on individual workstations. So, today I get an urgent call from work. Someone was on the DB and their computer froze. They had a record open to a particular client and had just clicked the close button for the form. The computer froze for only a minute or so. When the computer unfroze, they checked for the record and it was gone. It was an existing record that they were updating.

The good news is that I have several backups of the backend and only the individual record that was on the open form was lost. The related information on two other tables was still intact. So I went in and re-entered the data with the same record number and all is well. So what is my question?

If the form that the user was on was not completely closed, the record would not have been saved. But why was it deleted? Surely only the updated information would not have been saved.

And is there anything I can do to prevent such an occurrence in the future? I know if a computer crashed it can cause all sorts of problems, but this is a split DB. I would have thought that only the front end would have been corrupted.

Any insight, guidance, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ranman256]

It is rare that you'd experience a Freeze and a data loss.
Any save at all during the record entry would have preserved some of it.
I think this was a rare thing. But it's good you do backups.

 

[Eljefegeneo]

That is what I thought, at least the record would have been saved, but somehow it got deleted. The user cannot delete a record from a form. So I'd this just one of those rare quirks?

 

[JHB]

Is the form bound or unbound?
What about the relationship between the tables, how is they, ("Enforce Referential Integrity", "Cascade Update Related Fields" and "Cascade Delete Related Records")?

 

[Eljefegeneo]

The form is bound to a table. The two subforms on which the data was not deleted had no referential integrity.

 

[AccessBlaster]

I wouldn't think a simple freeze would be enough to delete a saved or edited record weird.

 

[Eljefegeneo]

Yes, very strange. Guess it is one of those things "never saw that before". Well, as I said in my first post, I make a backup copy of the back-end every morning by the first person who signs onto the DB. Guess that decision was a very wise one.