Please see the following Tutorials pages:
The importance of Backing up frequently here.
The Best Way to Backup here.
General Guidelines here.
If possible, for speed and efficiency, create the backup file on a computer hard drive, either the computer running C21 or another computer on the same network. WE DO NOT RECOMMEND USING FLOPPIES
Once a backup file has been created on a hard drive on the network, copy the backup file periodically to removable media such as a ZIP drive or a CDRW (Read/Write CD) drive. Although the backup command supports backing up to multiple floppies, floppies are no longer a good backup media choice – floppies are too slow and too low-capacity. They often develop errors over time, making the floppy backup unrecoverable.
Backing up a company:
Run System/Company/Backup. The system displays a window that lets you confirm the (From) Company location and (To) Backup location paths. The default company to be backed up is the currently selected company, if one is selected. The default backup location is the most recent backup or restore location. The window also offers several more backup options.
- If it is necessary to pick a different company to back up, press the drop-down list icon. Select the company you want to back up. (Select Choose a different location and browse to the correct drive and directory, if necessary.)
- If it is necessary to pick a backup file, press the Browse button. In the “Backup location” field, select the location for the backup and enter a name for the backup file, if you want to give it a name different from the default. (Browse to the desired drive and directory, if necessary.) Click Save.
- To append today's date to the backup filename, click the “Add date” box.
When it finishes, press any key to close the backup window when the system tells you the backup is OK.
The backup is a ZIP file with the name and location you specified during the backup procedure.
Restore a backup now and then before you need to, just as a test. Verify that you can find your backups. Verify that your backup medium can be read by the Restore command. And verify that 21st Century Accounting can open and read the restored data. Some customers who never had to restore backed-up data have discovered, too late, that their “regular” backups were not even happening. Make sure that yours are!
Regular tape backups may give you a false sense of security. It is VERY IMPORTANT to verify that you can find, restore, and use backups on tape BEFORE you find out you need to.
Restoring a backup
Run System/Company/Restore. The system displays a window that lets you confirm the (From) Company location and (To) Backup location paths. The default company to be backed up is the currently selected company, if one is selected. The default backup location is the most recent backup or restore location. The window also offers several more backup options. If you are restoring from a floppy, follow the first set of instructions below if Restore does not read multiple floppies.
Please, be very careful using Backup and Restore. They are wonderfully simple and virtually bullet-proof, but you always want to be very sure before you restore an older set of data on top of newer. And, of course, you know to make a backup any time you have entered a significant amount of data… At least daily, probably more often. The backup is quite fast.
Restoring data from floppies
If you backed up on multiple floppies and are having trouble restoring, follow these instructions:
1. Start up the Windows Explorer program and leave it running.
2. Then go start the restore process. Each time you are prompted to insert another disk of the set, do so, but before you press a key to have the Restore continue, switch over to Windows Explorer and highlight the diskette drive in the left pane to force Windows Explorer to read the contents of the diskette.
3. Then go back to the Restore window and press a key for Restore to continue.