Manual Backup and Restore

How To Manually Back Up My EasyAs Data Files

If you are experiencing some form of pc failure or some type of software problem that is preventing you from running the software then you may not be able to use the methods described in the video on the EasyAs Backup page, so in this case you may have to perform this activity yourself.  Thus you will have to manually backup your accounting data.

To manually backup your data files you will need to know how to copy files around your computer from one folder to another, if you are not sure how to do this then you should get some help before its too late and your pc crashes completely. If you have cd burning software that is still functioning then you could obviously use that to save a backup of your files.

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Manual Backing Up Is Simple, it really only consists of a few steps.

Step 1

Locate the EasyAs Data Directory.

The EasyAs Data Directory is found on your C Drive at this location C:EasyAs\Accounting8\Data

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Step 2

Locate the files located in the Data Directory

In the Data Directory you will find 4 files which contain the main data pertaining to your accounts.

This is a list of the 4 files which you need to backup:

EasyData1.accdb

EasyData2.accdb

EasyData3.accdb

EasyData4.accdb

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Please be aware that depending on your windows setup you may or may not see the data files with their file extensions.  The file extension is everything after the full stop.  In this case you may not see .accdb after the file name.  If you are only able to see EasyData1, EasyData2, EasyData3, EasyData4 and you do not see .accdb this is ok.  The .accdb still exists (its out of sight), us humans are not able to see it, so don’t worry just move to Step 3 below.

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Step 3

Copy these 4 files to a backup location

Basically all you need do is to copy all of these files to your external hard drive, backup drive, CD or where ever you are saving your data files to. Once you do this you will have saved the day and you have backed up your files.

I want you to be aware of something:

When you use the automatic backup process which is found in the EasyAs Program all that is occurring when the system performs the backup is that EasyAs is simply copying a copy of your data files to another location. Which is exactly the same process you are doing when you perform this manually, so there is no difference except that the auto process in the program also performs a management backup that places a data and time at the beginning of the files.

Can I Use Manual Backup All The Time ?

Yes... It is perfectly fine to always perform a manual backup of your data files if this is how you want to backup your data. If you feel safer taking complete control of the whole process and you do not want the have to rely on the computer to get it right then you can backup manually if you choose. Just remember to employ a data management process to ensure that you have multiple backups.

I do know that some individuals do want to take complete control of all Backup and Restore activity on their pc’s. I see that those who do want to be in charge are usually those who have been bitten before and don’t want to lose their information again.

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Restoring My Data

Information on how to copy/restore using the software is found on this page: Restoring your data files using EasyAs Restore 

Manual Restore Of My Data Files

However if you do not want to use the Restore process that comes with EasyAs then you can perform this yourself.

To manually restore your data files after a pc crash (or after a data corruption) all you need do is to copy the data files you previously backed up.

All you are doing is copying a copy of your backup files back into the EasyAs Data Directory.

As with the manual backup described above you need to locate the 4 files you backed up previously, these are the files you copied to your cd or other device..

Once you locate these files you then copy these files back into the EasyAs Data Directory which is located at C:EasyAs\Accounting8\Data

If you have had a pc crash then you would have downloaded and reinstalled the easyas software (this needs to be done before you can restore your files).. When you reinstall the EasyAs Software the program will install a new set of data files. These data files are empty data files as the program is treating you as a new customer. The restore process above simply overrides the empty files with your backup files.

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When I try to open the backup files I do not see any of my Data

From time to time we receive emails from clients telling us that they have followed all the steps to backing up but when they try to open up the backup files they don’t see any data, in most cases all they see is a blank screen.

Please be aware that this is normal, as there is no way of looking at the data in the backup files, the only way that the data can be viewed is by the EasyAs Program itself.

An important point to note: The files that you backup are the files that contain all your accounting information, the information stored in those files is stored in a series of tables. If you were to accidentally make a change to the information in any of the key locations in any of the tables this could potentially render all your accounting information useless. This is why under normal conditions the only way to be able to view the information in the backup files is by using the EasyAs Accounting Software.

The most important point to remember is to backup. If you follow the steps to backing up and you have backed up your files then you should be fine..

It is important to backup regularly and to keep staggered copies of your data to protect yourself against data corruption.. I personally keep up to 3 months of data backups, backing up once a week, so in total I have 12 different sets of backups (call me paranoid but its what I do): Good Backup Practices