IBSurgeon FirstAid

FirstAID is the only solution for automatically repairing corruption that neither gbak nor gfix can handle. FirstAID uses its own layer for low-level database access without using the InterBase or Firebird engine, so it can perform real "surgical" operations and repair your database when all other standard mechanism's cannot.

Using FirstAID together with other standard recovery means such as the default gfix and gbak utilities it is possible to repair a corrupted database in more than 80% of all cases.

IBSurgeon has a free Diagnostic version of FirstAID which you can use to accurately check the actual database status. It will analyze the low-level data structures in your database and present you with a detailed log of what may be wrong in the database.

  1. Download the Diagnostic Version.
  2. Open the corrupted database with FirstAID Extractor and then double click on the table name, you can browse through the table's data pages.
  3. If you decide to recover the data you see in the FirstAID Extractor, you can purchase a license. What you see is what you will recover with the FirstAID Extractor.
  4. Make sure to read 'FirstAID (Firebird and InterBase) Recovery Guide before attempting recovery.

If you want to you can send the diagnostic log to our support service for a free answer on whether your database is recoverable or not, whether its recoverable by IBFirstAid directly, whether you need to use he Extractor or whether we need to perform some manual work to assist the recovery process. We will also try and estimate how much of the your data can be recovered if there really is a serious problem that will not allow 100% recovery.

FirstAID is a tool that can automatically diagnose and repair corrupted Firebird or InterBase databases.

Two versions of FirstAID are available, one as a free download:

There is a free version that allows you to diagnose potential problems with your database and there is also a commercial version that allows you to fix the problems that are found. The diagnostic features allow you to check a database's validity. Whilst the fully featured version is capable of fixing a number of common database corruption problems.

FirstAID uses its own database access layer to connect to analyze and repair a Firebird or InterBase database.

There are a large number of possible corruptions that FirstAID has been designed to repair and correct. Some of these are listed below:

  • Internal gds software consistency check (cannot find tip page (165))

    The required Transaction Inventory Page is corrupt and the database cannot be opened. It is expected in this instance that neither gbak nor gfix will be able to repair your database (except in the case of a Read Only database). IBFirstAID will repair the missing pages and recover the database.

  • Unknown database I/O error for file "*.gdb"

    Error while trying to read from the database file. This usually indicates that a number of database pages have probably been lost at the end of the database file (power failure?). In this instance the database cannot be opened. Gfix cannot repair this. FirstAID will recreate the missing system pages and deletes the wrong pointers.

  • Database file appears corrupt. Wrong page type. Page NNN is of wrong type (expected X, found Y)

    This error can indicate a number of problems. But typically there are missing pages in the database, or the page that is being accessed is not the expected page type. For example, if the expected page type is 5, it can mean that some data may have been corrupted within a table. Such a corruption may prevent a sucessful backup backup or may make the table unavailable to the database. FirstAID fixes the wrong page pointers and repairs the database.

  • Wrong record length. Cannot find backversion.

    FirstAID will check every record in database and will try and repair these record-level errors.

  • Other database corruptions can be caused by lost pages.

Licensing

FirstAID for Firebird/InterBase to repair three databases.
Price: $210.59 buy

FirstAID for Firebird/InterBase to repair fifty databases.
Price: $410.59 buy

If FirstAid cannot help you with your problem, then contact us and we will try and repair your database under the following terms.

Price: $390.00/2 hours, 2 hours minimum. Then $195.00 per hour until the repair is completed.