Normalize an exsiting DB?

[voidcranium]

Hello I have a question.
I work for a company that had someone set up an Access database that generates work orders.

That person created a single LARGE table. 107 fields in the table. over 3000 records created so far.

Should I bother to try and normalize it?
Can it be Normalized?
Is it a pain?

Or should I just start over and create a new database. I thought about doing this but don't know if I can copy the old information into the new one.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

[Bat17]

Have a look at Tools>Analyse>Table
This may help you

peter

 

[The_Doc_Man]

It almost always helps to normalize a database.

If for no other reason, you get speed out of it even though more tables are involved. The reason is that excessively "wide" tables require more disk buffer reads per record than "narrowed" tables.

You also get space back, SHORTING the tables, if there is a lot of duplication.

Rule #1 when attempting to normalize an existing DB is to do it first on a COPY of the db and make good notes.

Once you have decided what you want to do, if the table analyzer doesn't help - or doesn't help ENOUGH - revisit this thread and post more specific questions.

 

[voidcranium]

Well I tried the analyzer and it has not finished.
I will let it run tonight when I leave and hope it gets done by the morning.

I will see what happens then.

Thanks