Backup and Restore Database
Keep your data safe by regularly backing up.
What would happen if you lost your calibration data? I've lost all my data a few
times and it's a bit less than pleasant; I've learned my lesson! Even if you
have a backup routine, it may not be enough if you're not backing up you data at least
daily. For instance, what would you do if you lost a day's worth of work?
There are several solutions to keeping your data safe depending on if you use MS
Access or MS SQL Server, or even if you keep you database on the same computer. Here are a few suggestions . . .
Multiple Physical Locations Rule
Always ensure that your backup location is a different physical hard [disk] drive
(HDD) location. The farther apart those locations, the better. For instance, backing
up your data from your computer to an external HDD is good but moving that HDD to
a different room or geographic location is even better.
Backup Options
When you install Calibration Control, the default location for your MS Access database
file is on the same computer you install the software. See the help topic on
finding your database to find the specific location. In this situation, if your HDD
crashes you will lose everything. Therefore, your backup plan must include
storing your backup data on a data storage device other than your computer.
If you are using the SQL Server version of Calibration Control, the location of
your database (an MDF file) is controlled by your SQL Server and is incrementally backed up to an LDF file. Depending on your
choices during installation or migration (from MS Access to MS SQL Server), your
database could be on the same computer or it could be somewhere on one of the servers
in your network.
Whether you use Access or SQL Server, you have two primary backup options . . .
- Use your own backup routine to backup you database, and other important
files, to a remote location. The remote location is an external storage device (e.g.,
HDD or key) or a network location other than the current computer.
- Use the following Calibration Control backup routine to safeguard
your calibration data.
You can use the Calibration Control Database Backup utility to create backup copies
of the database. Find the Database Backup utility within one of the utilities groups
(see figure below) and click Backup Database.
To use, select a file name for your backup; something like
a date code and 'calibration_backup' work well. Next, select the location or file
path to backup to and then click the [Backup] button. Remember to choose an HDD
location other than then HDD where the live database is stored.
A success message is displayed if the backup operation was successful.
If possible, try to keep your backup data, or at least one copy of it, in a separate physical location.
Restoring a Database
Restoring a Calibration Control database is the same process whether you're using an Access or SQL Server database.
Warning: Restoring a database completely overwrite the current data. If you are not sure that this is what you want to do, make a dated backup of the current database contents before restoring a previous version of your database.
- Close all open screens, especially the main Tool Browse screen.
- From within Calibration Control, click on the Restore Database option (directly below the Backup Database) option in the Utilities menu.
- Click [Browse] from within the Restore Database dialog to navigate to select the backed up database you wish to restore.
- Click the [Restore] button. Pay attention to the warning dialogs.
- When you're done, click the [Close] button on the Restore Database dialog.
If you left any data screens open, you will need to refresh or close and reopen to see the restored data.
Last updated: 7/4/2011
Compatibility: Calibration Control MS Access Versions 5.x