Microsoft Jet Database Engine is used by many applications to actually
provide the basic database access--Excel, Access, even Word and many other
applications, both from Microsoft and from 3rd-parties, use it. Think of the
file as similar to a car body, the application as the chassis, and the Jet
Engine as, well, the engine.

I went into that detail because I don't recognize the HRD extension--and the
extension usually points to what kind of application you are using to view
and manipulate the database. The two things I would do as simple standard
operating procedure when dealing with this kind of issue: 1. Reinstall the
actual application that handles your HRD database file; and/or 2. Update the
Jet Database Engine, *and* MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components.)

Here's the most recent Jet package--Note, this one is *not* for Windows 2000
or XP--only for earlier versions. The other two have their own downloads.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...0-46f815d3f5cd

For MDAC:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...7-3cffcb0c2524

There's a brand new MDAC download, 2.8, but it's new enough that I'd be
leery of it. This one is more likely to be stable and have fewer backwards
compatibility issues. Updating the above two will help to verify that it
isn't a problem in the core procedures being accessed by the application.

However, the error message you are getting is common in the cases of an
incredibly wide variety of JET problems, so here's a partial list of MS
Knowledge Base articles that cover *some* of the possibilities:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/...ySource=g ASr
_Query&Product=msall&Queryc=already+opened+exclusi vely+by+another+user+or+yo
u+need+permission+to+view+its+data&Query=already+o pened+exclusively+by+anoth
er+user+or+you+need+permission+to+view+its+data&Ke ywordType=ALL&maxResults=1
50&Titles=false&numDays=

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP for Win9x

"Fran" wrote in message
...
(Windows 98) I reformatted my C disk. I backed up data on
a floppy disk, but when restoring found the data to be no
good. Also saved the data file to CD. When I tried to
open that data file, got this message:

Unable to open herd database. The Microsoft Jet database
engine cannot open the file "I:\MyHerds\NewHerddata.hrd".
It is alreday opened exclusively by another user or you
need permission to view its data.

It is my data and no one is using it. Is there a way to
get around this?

The data is lost?? Crocodile tears.