Your OPEN MyDatabase EXELUSIVE will not close the DB if already open and open it exclusively like you can with a USE command on a table. You have to CLOSE ALL to make sure the DB and all its tables get closed. Then, if the DB is not open, OPEN MyDatabase EXCLUSIVE will open the DB exclusively. Now you can run the VALIDATE DATABASE RECOVER command.

>Hi,
> Thanks for your help the other time.It really helped a lot.Now I face another problem.I created a set of tables in a database.What happened next was,and error message states that there is no back links to the database.So I re checked and find that nothing is wrong.I tried using
>
> OPEN MyDatabase EXCLUSIVE
> VALIDATE DATABASE RECOVER
>Then I was prompted again that I must use the database exclusive.I don't really know what to do next.So I removed the tables from the database and created a new table.The same thing happened again.
>
>Your help is very much appreciated as I am still a new user to VFP.