Why should I make backups?
Not making backups is like playing Russian roulette with four bullets in the gun instead of one! Make backups routinely! Your software well exceeds a standard floppy disks capacity. The auto backup routines provided in this software will only duplicate the files into another directory. This will not prevent data lost in the case of a hard disk crash or virus. Think about this. If you had to re-enter all the data what day do you want to start from? Yesterday, last week, last month, from scratch? You walked in one morning and your software was gone what would you do? This is how you make a living. Protect it with everything you have. MAKE BACKUPS.
Three things can bring your program to a grinding halt:
Hardware problems: You have no control over these. It is accepted that every hard drive will crash eventually. Your software transfers a large amount of information around on your hard drive. If power is lost, even for a micro-second, it can cause the data to be written incorrectly. This can lead to data corruption.
Software problems: Windows errors, software driver conflicts, print driver conflicts, etc. This often requires restoring a backup.
User error: By performing ??? incorrectly (what is ??? we don't know, but it happens. If we were there we might be able to tell you what you did.) This often requires restoring a backup.
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How do I make a backup?
Do to the fact that there are so many different types of backup utilities, it would be impossible to answer them all here. Please refer to the manual provided by the backup manufacturer. We will however provide an example for a Zip Drive.
The below example is for Zip Drives (recommend backup drive) running on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000. It may possibly be applied to other types of drives.
This is what you would need to do to make a backup onto a Zip Drive.
From your desktop with no other software running and the zip disk in the drive
Double Click on My Computer
Double Click on the C: Icon
Right click on the folder icon for "Petsits" or "Pettrain" and left click on copy
Close all open windows and return to the desktop
Double Click on My Computer
Double Click on the Removable Drive Icon or Zip Icon
Right click on any of the white space as long as you are not click on and icon and left click on paste
Next right click on the Petsits or Pettrain folder icon and left click on rename hit the right arrow key on your keyboard once and one spacebar next todays date
(Ex. "Petsits" becomes "Petsits 10.21.00" or "Pettrain" becomes "Pettrain 1.1.01")
At some point you will fill up your Zip drive when this happens it will warn you that there is no space left on the drive. Just hit OK and the right click on your oldest backup and then left click on delete. From here on out just delete the oldest backup before pasting to the zip drive.
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What can I store my backup on?
The most common types of storage are tape, Zip, Jazz, Syquest, CD-R and CR-RW.
There are benefits and draw backs to each. We recommend Zip Drives.
Media Pros and Cons
Tape
Pros:
Generally ships with a scheduler program that will automatically backup at a given time. Dependable. Reasonably inexpensive. Can hold large amounts of data.
Cons:
Data must be decompressed to use. Must have two identical tape drives if you want to restore the tape to another PC. Can not be universally read by all tape drives.
Zip
Pros:
Very easy to use. Acts like an extra hard drive. Data can be accessed immediately and even run off of the zip drive. Reasonably inexpensive. Portable. Zip can hold 100MB or 250MB.
Cons:
None.
CD-R and CD-RW
Pros:
Holds 650MB of data. Can be read by any CD-ROM drive. Can not be erased unless using a rewritable CD-RW drive.
Cons:
CD's are not reusable unless using a rewritable CD-RW drive. Requires some work to create backup and restore from backup.
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How often and how many backups should I have?
The answer is how much work are you willing to lose? One day? Two Weeks? Everything? It is suggested you make a backup of the database at least once a week and keep two copies of each backup in separate locations. If your office was subject to fire or flood and your backups are located in only one location, you still loose everything.
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How do I restore a backup?
Your backups should be complete copies of the program. Everything you need is on the backup. You should NOT install the original installation disks. Restore your backup according to the instructions provided by the backup manufacture. IMPORTANT: Make sure to select the option that "Overwrite All Files".
The below example is for Zip Drives (recommend backup drive) running on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000. It may possibly be applied to other types of drives.
This is what you would need to do to restore from a Zip Drive
From your desktop with no other software running and the zip disk in the drive
Double Click on My Computer
Double Click on the Removable Drive Icon or Zip Icon
Right click on the icon of your most recent backup and left click on rename
Remove the date from the folder name by using the backspace key
(Ex. "Petsits 10.21.00" becomes "Petsits" or "Pettrain 1.1.01" becomes "Pettrain")
Next right click on the Petsits or Pettrain folder icon and left click on copy
Close all open windows and return to the desktop
Double Click on My Computer
Double Click on the C: Icon
Right click on any of the white space as long as you are not click on and icon and left click on paste
It will ask you if you want to replace the files choose yes to all.
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Do I need to backup only certain files?
No. Backup all files in your softwares folder. Eclipse Development, Inc. uses multiple databases. If you forget to backup one of them correctly the program will not work.
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Buying A New Computer
When you buy a new computer, you will want to “move” your current copy of your software. You will also need to “reinstall” your software. Your daily backups retain all your customer information as well as the actual program. Before you move your software to your new computer you should first reinstall the program from the install disks. Then from your backup media (tapes, diskettes, Zip, Jazz, etc.) you should copy the information to the new computer.
There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to bring in the old computer to a computer shop and have them transfer the information onto the hard drive of your new computer. The other option is to buy or use a backup device that works on both computers. This can be a tape drive, zip drive, etc. Using the tape drive or Zip drive is much faster and easier. Basically the steps are: 1) Backup your program from your old computer onto the tape, zip, etc. 2) Install the tape, zip, etc. on the new computer 3) Restore the backup onto the new computer. See how do I make backups and how do I restore from backups.
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