However to be able to avoid corruption in you Access database, you will first have to know the causes of data corruption; given below are a few of the most common reasons for corruption of data in Access. 1. Hardware Failure. This is undoubtedly the most common cause of corruption in an Access database. If you are running a hardware that is obsolete and does not allow for complete utilization of the application, there are very high chances that it would ultimately lead to a system crash.