I just received a file geodatabase today from a client on a USB harddrive only when I tried to open the geodatabase in ArcCatalog, the program doesn't recognize it as a geodatabase. In both Catalog and Map it has the appearance of a file folder and when I try to open it, it claims the folder is empty. I checked the geodatabases against some other ones that work properly via windows explorer and they have all the same files inside of them, so I don't think that I'm missing any pieces to make it break.
The geodatabase came to me named RomulusData.gdb and it was just a copy of our client's data with no alterations done to it. We're both running Arc 10.1.
Is there any way to fix the geodatabase? I found another user who had the exact same issue in 2010 on the archived forums, but it doesn't look like he ever got an answer as to how to fix the issue or even why it happened in the first place. (http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=93&f=1727&t=253881)
ArcGIS identifies a File Geodatabase using two criteria. 1) The folder name must include .gdb 2) A file named "gdb" must be present within the directory.
If both of these conditions are true then ArcGIS recognizes the directory as a file geodatabase. Verify that the folder name includes the .gdb extension and that the folder contains a "gdb" file. If not, something is missing from the USB drive. You can copy a gdb file from an existing file geodatabase and if nothing else is missing this should fix the problem.
ArcGIS identifies a File Geodatabase using two criteria. 1) The folder name must include .gdb 2) A file named "gdb" must be present within the directory.
If both of these conditions are true then ArcGIS recognizes the directory as a file geodatabase. Verify that the folder name includes the .gdb extension and that the folder contains a "gdb" file. If not, something is missing from the USB drive. You can copy a gdb file from an existing file geodatabase and if nothing else is missing this should fix the problem.
