Making backups of your database is Essential ! Not just a good idea but very, very necessary. Every month I am asked to help recover a database that has been corrupted or difficult to recover from a damaged hard drive. If you make a backup of your database every week or after every major data entry session you will be protected in case you hard disk crashes or the lap top disappears.
It is a good idea to make a backup to your computer - but also - to a flash drive or an external hard disk. That way you will have a copy away from the computer if disaster strikes.
The Backup Utility (on the Utilities Menu) will make a backup of the Database-DATAONLY file. This is where your data resides. This is the important file to have.
(Remember the Equipment Inventory Database xx.accdb file is just the forms and reports. A backup of this file is made at the time of the installation.)
This example shows the backup being saved to the C:\ drive. It is strongly recommended that you backup the data to an external hard disk or at least a USB drive.
The backup file in the Backup folder will have a name like this: " Equipment Inventory Database DATAONLY BACKUP 201803121051.accdb". This shows the date and time when the backup was made. That way you will know which one is the most recent.
Restoring your database file:
*** To restore the data from a backup file - rename the file in the \Equipment Inventory Database folder to something like "Old Equipment Inventory Database DATAONLY.accdb" then copy the backup file to that same directory. Rename the backup to remove the word "BACKUP" and the date and time info. The file should be named "Equipment Inventory Database DATAONLY.accdb" .
