Mysql database is one among the most reliable databases that allows you to store your large amount of data safely. But once the database gets corrupt due to any reasons, leads to complete inaccessibility of the entire database records and appearance of various error messages that can direct you to severe data loss situations. One such is sql error5171.

Suppose a situation where you are using Sql server for report creation but in the middle unexpected system shutdown occurs after which the server restarts. After restarting the system, you are unable to access the mdf files leading to an error message similar to this:

“An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. _db.mdf is not a primary database file. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 5171).”

Or

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\MYDATABASE.mdf is not a primary database file. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 5171)”

Cause:

The primary cause behind this error is the database corruption which can be due to a number of reasons like unexpected system shutdown, file header or index corruption, virus attack, any kind of human errors etc. All these reasons are responsible for the sql database error 5171. But in the above discussed case, the error is due to file header corruption.

Solution:

IIn order to resolve the Sql error 5171, you need to fix up the file header corruption so as to re-access your database records. For this, make use of valid and updated backup that can restore the mdf files. But in case of absence of backup, the best is to go for Mysql repair tool which is efficient enough to repair the corrupted database files and restores them easily and competently.