How do I know the source of the files in my geodatabase

[JochenScholtes]

Hi folks,

a former colleague (who is not available at the moment) handed my over his old GIS Pooject.
He processed his data using a Geodatabase.
I want to rebuild his project but unfortunately for each layer type (like a DEM or a landuse layer) I found several versions and I don't know which one he was using in first place.
I tried to figure it out by taking a closer look at the layer attributes which were related to the Geodatabase but I didn't find the source. When I look at "Source" it tells me that the Geodatabase itself is the source, but I want to know where the layer itself is stored.

How can I tell from a Geodatabase where the layers were stored (or are stored) before they were related to a Geodatabase?

Thanks for reading and best regards

Scholtes

[JoeBorgione]

Hi folks,

a former colleague (who is not available at the moment) handed my over his old GIS Pooject.
He processed his data using a Geodatabase.
I want to rebuild his project but unfortunately for each layer type (like a DEM or a landuse layer) I found several versions and I don't know which one he was using in first place.
I tried to figure it out by taking a closer look at the layer attributes which were related to the Geodatabase but I didn't find the source. When I look at "Source" it tells me that the Geodatabase itself is the source, but I want to know where the layer itself is stored.

How can I tell from a Geodatabase where the layers were stored (or are stored) before they were related to a Geodatabase?

Thanks for reading and best regards

Scholtes

If he saved the mxds the source data should give you the specific feature class name.  See my attached image.  I don't understand your question:  How can I tell from a Geodatabase where the layers were stored (or are stored) before they were related to a Geodatabase?  It would be impossible to tell where the origin of the data is if he transferred them into a geodatabase from some other source.

I would study the geodatabase contents that you have available to you and make a determination which is the most current.

[VinceAngelo]

If your organization is in the habit of correctly populating metadata, then there
might be more information available there, but the "source" is the actual GDB table
not the "origin of the source" used to populate it.

You might be able to use the feature count (vectors) or image dimensions (raster)
to identify the data origin; after that it would take a great deal more detective work
(probably involving MD5 hash sums -- they're very useful for determining data signatures).

- V

[JochenScholtes]

Thanks for your quick answers:

@ vangelo: I think metadata is something he's never heard of!

@ jborgion: Maybe my description is unsufficiennt, any I am not very familiar with the concept of geodatabases.
When I opened the project the first time I wanted to know where they were stored.
So I right clicked on them in the table-of-contents window to look at their properties. Instead of their real source (like a complete path name to an exact folder) the source was an *.mdb. And as I am not familiar with geodatabases I needed some help on this.
I hope I could clarify this.

Best regards,
Jochen

[VinceAngelo]

The "source" in a Desktop project is the file/table providing the data. The act of loading
data into a geodatabase changes the format of the data to "geodatabase" (in this case,
an Access personal geodatabase). There is no reason for a table to care how it came to
be populated (it won't change how the rows are accessed), and therefore no way to store
this as part of the table (save through the use of metadata, which is stored elsewhere).

- V

[JoeBorgione]

Echo what Vince said...

So when you check out the properties of a given feature class, you are not given the path to the geodatabase as shown in my image above?  Seems odd, but it might be because he saved his mxd without storing the relative paths to the data(Total WAG; wild a** guess).

Can you post a screen capture as I did so we can see shat you are seeing.

[JochenScholtes]

I'll load up a screen-shot, as soon as I work on this machine again (Tuesday).

Regards,
Muenchner

[JochenScholtes]

So, after a delay, a screenshot of how my *.mdb looks liks.

The dataset displayed is a DEM.

[JoeBorgione]

Jochen-  the database name is RasterStore.mdb; mdb = microsoft database(Access) and as Vince mentioned this is a 'personal geodatabase'.

Another WAG: the D drive is a network drive.  Somewhere in that drive is the path to the database (scholtes\Masterabeit\etc\etc\)

Hope this helps-

[JochenScholtes]

Thanks again for the answer.
I think I get  it now.
So for me there is no way to recover the original files just with the information from the geodatabase. As there is no meta-data
I somehow have to reach the person who worked on that data.

Greets
Muenchner