| Performing
Backup in 32bit Windows |
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For those of us who remember the
days of MSDOS, backups were fairly straightforward. You simply performed a CD
command and copied all the files from a directory onto floppies or tape. With 32 bit
Windows its not so easy. For starters, files are no longer all located in one
directory. They are spread across many directories including the Windows and System
directories. And, the files are now fairly large and usually don't fit on a floppy.
We sometimes receive support requests asking, "What files should I backup and
how do I get them on floppies"? We've listed some of the options below for your
convenience. Remember, backups are your last defense against the unexpected.
You can bet that someday, your system will crash, lightning may strike, or your pc just
goes up in smoke. So, to think that it will never happen to me is just wishful
thinking. Don't make the mistake of putting this off till some other day. Be
safe and protect your data. In DXbase, the files to be concerned about are your
database files ( .mdb ) and the labels and user designed report files ( see the help file
for info on these ). All the others can be restored by reinstalling DXbase, so its
not necessary to worry about those for backup purposes since they are preserved on your
CDROM.
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Install a ZIP
drive and simply copy the files onto a zip disk
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This is by far the simplest approach. A
zip drive is just like a floppy drive. They come in both an external and an internal
version. The external version is the easiest to use because it just plugs into your
parallel port and then your printer plugs into the zip drive. These drives can hold
upwards of 100 megabytes on a single disk. When you install a zip drive, it then
shows up just like your A drive, C drive, etc. in Windows Explorer. So you can copy
and paste directly to and from the zip drive. Since it can hold a large amount of
data, you should not have any trouble copying your database files directly to a zip disk.
Zip drives can be purchased for around $125.00. |
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Use Winzip to
"zip" up your important files and copy the resulting .zip files onto floppies. |
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This method may work if the resulting .zip file
is small enough to fit on a single floppy disk. If it won't, then you may need to
locate a utility or register the WinZip program so that you get the functionality that
allows you to copy a single file across multiple floppy disks. When one disk is
full, you would be prompted to insert the next disk, and so forth. |
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Use the built in
Windows backup utility |
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This method compresses the data to be backed up
and then allows copying the files onto floppy disks. The format that is written to
the floppy is sometimes operating system dependent. This means that if you have made
a backup on a Windows 95 machine, you may not be able to read the disk on a Windows NT
machine, and so forth. Read up on this option in the Windows help file. Some
say this method is cumbersome. |
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Replicate files
onto a second hard drive |
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If you happen to have more than one physical hard
drive on your machine, you can copy files from one hard drive to another. This
method is better than none, but it is very risky because you never know when something may
happen to your system that causes both hard drives to become destroyed. This happens
sometimes if the controller card shorts out, or in severe lightning surges. |
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| There may be other options too, such
as using a commercial backup program. If you have one of these, read the operating
instructions to learn how to use it. The bottom line is that you must protect your
data with backups to avoid trouble. |
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