• Daily Backups
• Alternate Disk Labelling Method
• End of Month Backups
• Hard Disk Backups (and Daily Hard Disk Backups)
• Alternative Backup Media
• Using WinZip instead of PKZIP to do your backups
• Backing up onto USB Flash Drives, Memory Sticks etc. (RECOMENDED)
• Labelling your Backup CDs (or other CDs)
• If you need to backup or restore any of our old MS-DOS based software
• Restoring a Previous Backup
• AutoSave Automatic Backup Program
  
  
• Internet Backup Solutions
  
  
• Backing Up to CD (CDR or CDRW) (RECOMENDED)
  
  
• Problems with Backup using Windows NT, 2000 or XP (historical interest only)
• Copying to CDRW disks under Windows XP using Windows Explorer (if you MUST do it this way)
• Easy Copying to CD-MRW disks under Windows XP using Mt Rainier (no longer recommended)
• New method of backing up to CDR and/or CDRW Disks using NeroCMD (historical interest only)
• Backing up onto CDR disks instead of CD-RW or CD-MRW (historical interest only)
• Using Windows-XP Built In CD Burning (if you don't have Nero but you DO have Win-XP)

Daily Backups

How often you backup your data depends on how often you make changes to it. As a rule you should backup once a day - to a different disk (or set of disks) each day, You would label these disk sets

• Monday Backup
• Tuesday Backup
• Wednesday Backup
• Thursday Backup
• Friday Backup

You should store these backup disks at another location as, if there is a fire at your office and the disks and the computer are all there then, again, you won't have a backup. A fire proof safe is NOT sufficient protection as the disks may not catch fire but they will MELT!

You MUST also make sure that the DO DAILY HARD DISK BACKUP AS WELL option is ticked on the backup screen.

Note: If you choose to backup to CD then buy one of those CD cases which store 10 to 20 CDs in plastic sleeves inside a wallet covered with wetsuit type material. These types of cases give good protection to the CDs and you can keep them all together instead of using the standard CD "jewel" cases that you buy the CDs in. Keep the CD case in your car and only take it out each evening to do the backup and then put the CD back into the case and put the case back into your car.

Alternate Disk Labelling Method

• Week 1 Backup (day 1-7 eg if the date on which you do the backup is from 01/10/2006 to 07/10/2006)
• Week 2 Backup (day 8-14)
• Week 3 Backup (day 15-21)
• Week 4 Backup (day 22-28)
• Week 5 Backup (day 29-31)

End of Month Backups

• January Backup
• February Backup
• March Backup
• etc...

Hard Disk Backups (and Daily Hard Disk Backups)

In addition we also suggest that, IMMEDIATELY prior to closing off the month, you save your data under a different name on your hard disk. We would suggest that you save it using a name like ACCTyymm.Mdb where yy is the year and mm is the month (eg for July 2002 you would save the database as ACCT0207.Mdb). This will enable you to use the SELECT NEW DATABASE option from the file menu to change to this database later on if you need to print out a report from or do an inquiry into a prior month. Don't forget to change back to your normal live database before making any changes to the database.

To do a daily hard disk backup go to the backup screen as normal but click on the BACKUP MENU rather than the BACKUP DATABASE button. Then select DAILY HARD DISK BACKUP. If you do the backup on a Monday and your database is called RENTSMIT.MDB then the system will make a backup in the \RENTMST\BACKUP folder called MON-SMIT.MDB while on Wednesday it would be called WED-SMIT.MDB. Each time you do a backup the system will write today's daily backup over the top of the backup that you did the previous week automatically so you won't be accumulating new copies of your database every day (a maximum of 5-7 copies - Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu etc will be created).

If you have the DO A DAILY HARD DISK BACKUP TOO option ticked in the backup screen then the system will automatically do a daily hard disk backup prior to your normal backup to floppy disk, LS-120 disk, CDRW disk etc and this is a good idea to always do this for the short time that it takes.

To restore from a daily hard disk backup you don't need your normal floppy disk, LS-120, Zip Disk, CDRW disk backup as you can just restore the backup from your hard disk. See information below about Restoring a Backup.

Alternative Backup Media

• LS-120 disk (120Mb)
• Zip Disk (100Mb or 250Mb)
• Iomega REV Disk (not sure how big they are)
• CDRW or CDR Disk. (650Mb or 700Mb)
• Magnetic Tape Drives (not recommended - too slow and cumbersome)
• USB Memory Sticks (you only need to use 1Gb, 2Gb or at most 4Gb sticks) - this is the easiest, fastest, most reliable and so the is best and option currently

Another benefit of these alternatives is that normally you will only ever need ONE disk for each day's backup. When your data is backed up it is also compressed and it is unlikely that your compressed data will ever exceed 100Mb (the capacity of the smallest Zip Disk) and it will certainly NEVER exceed one CDR or CDRW disk.

Once you have installed the memory stick, CDRW, LS-120 or ZIP drive you need to go into our backup program for the system to be able to identify the new drive. Once the system has identified the other possible backup drives you can select them from the list under the BACKUP TO label.

Using WinZip instead of PKZIP to do your backups

You can download WinZip and the Command line add-on from www.winzip.com or our web site Links page or from the two links in the paragraph above.

When any of the WinZip downloads start make sure that you choose the SAVE option and NOT the OPEN or RUN option. When asked WHERE to save it (Save in Location) navigate to the folder where your program is stored (eg C:\RENTMSTR, c:\BROKER, c:\PAYROLL or c:\ACCTNG etc) and save the downloaded file there. You can find out what your Program Folder is by using this method .

Make sure that when it starts downloading that the box marked CLOSE THIS DIALOG BOX WHEN DOWNLOAD COMPLETED is NOT ticked. When the download is complete then you can click on the OPEN button and then the SETUP button to start the installation process. Choose to install ALL WinZip related files to either C:\PROGRAM FILES\WINZIP or C:\WINZIP. Whenever a NEXT or FINISH button appears - just click them without changing anything (other than the install path).

Repeat the download steps for the WinZip Command Line Interface download.

Note: If you have the a version of our backup program dated 06-Jul-2007 or later then there is a new [Get WinZip] menu item which allows you to just click on a number of menu items to automatically download these files.

Backing up onto USB Flash Drives, Memory Sticks etc.

We have had many people who have asked whether they can backup to USB Memory Sticks, Flash Drives etc (those little plastic memory sticks that you can stick into a USB port on your computer). The answer is YES you can but you MUST make sure that you have DO A DAILY HARD DISC BACKUP TOO ticked in the backup program. We have had several of our customers who only used one memory stick for backup and the memory stick was lost and the only other backup they could find was several years old!!!

These devices arfe now quite cheap. I've seen them around for less than $10.00 for a 1Gb memory stick which is all that you would need. It may be hard to find 1Gb memory sticks soon so you may have to opt for 2Gb or 4Gb memory sticks. Actually 128Mb memory sticks would be adequate as the largest Zipped up backup I have seen for our Rent Master, Ausbroker or Payroll software has been under 20Mb. Note that if you use these devices they would be used EXCLUSIVELY for backing up your Rent Master or Ausbroker etc data - not for any other purpose. If you work on the weekends too then I would suggest buying extra devices to cover these days. Make sure that you label them with the day of the week so that you know which one to use.

When you use an external hard disk or external USB memory sticks etc the system will recognise it as being a hard disk drive - so it may be drive E:, F: or G: for example. To tell the backup program that it exists you need to click on the CHECK FOR OTHER BACKUP DRIVES option in the FLOPPY menu in the backup program. Then, when you click on the BACKUP TO Combo box on the backup form you should see you floppy drive (A:), your CDRW drive (usually D:) and the new USB memory drive (perhaps drive E:).

Now that you have identified the drive letter to use for the USB memory stick then just select this drive from the BACKUP TO list and click on the BACKUP DATABASE as normal. Make sure that you DON'T have the ERASE DISK BEFORE COPY selected (unless the backup is the ONLY information that is to be stored on the memory stick) and the FORMAT DISK BEFORE COPY option must NOT be selected either - use the NO FORMAT OR ERASE option.

Once you have set this function up then you just click on the BACKUP DATABASE button (or RESTORE DATABASE button to Restore the backup) just the same as if it was a floppy disk drive.

PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOU DON'T KEEP THE MEMORY STICKS OR CDS IN THE SAME LOCATION AS THE COMPUTER. TAKE THEM HOME WITH YOU AS IF THE COMPUTER AND THE MEMORY STICK(S) GET STOLEN (OR YOU HAVE A FIRE ETC) THEN YOU WON'T HAVE A BACKUP.

Buy a key ring and keep of your USB keys together on this one key ring. Keep the key ring in your purse, pocket or car and only take it out each evening to do the backup and then IMMEDIATELY put the key ring away again.

NITE: You CANNOT just remove a USB memory stick from your computer when you have finished with it. You MUST click on the SAFELY REMOVE DEVICE icon in your computer's task bar first.

Labelling your Backup CDs (or other CDs)

An alternative to handwriting the labels is to print labels. Epson's R210, R300, R310 and R800 printers and Canon's MP-780, MP-830, i865, i965, iP3000, iP4000, iP5000, PIXMA iP4000R, PIXMA iP6000D, PIXMA iP8500 and i9950 printers will print directly onto a "printable" CD. A printable CD has a totally white top surface with no writing on it and with no silver backing showing through. These printers come with a special CD tray that you can mount the CD onto and insert the CD into the printer. Once you have done this you can print onto the CD in the same way that you print onto a piece of paper. Both Epson and Canon supply special software for designing and printing onto CDs. (Note that any of our software CDs that we currently supply to you have been printed on our Canon MP-780 printer.)

Another alternative WHICH WE DON'T RECOMMEND is to purchase CD labels for your printer. These "peel'n'stick" labels come mounted onto an A4 size backing sheet and you can print onto the labels using any printer. Then just peel them off and stick them onto the top surface of the CD. You can also purchase special label applicators which will ensure that the label is centred onto the CD correctly. If you choose to do it by hand you need to be VERY careful to make sure that you get it right as if you attempt to peel all or part of the label off the CD again you will ruin the whole CD. Obviously, if the label is off centre, it will cause problems in your CD drive. Due to the high speeds at which CDR disks rotate a label which is off centre can produce a severe wobble (like a car which badly needs a wheel alignment). We have heard stories of labels coming off IN the CD drive and ruining the whole CD drive. I have even seen one instance where a CD with an off centre label shattered inside the CD drive when it had spun up to full speed (52 x normal CD speed). This ruined the whole CD drive (and obviously the backup).

If you need to backup or restore any of our old MS-DOS based software

Under Windows-95, Windows-98 or Windows-Me you need to add a line into the C:\Config.Sys file on your computer saving DEVICEHIGH=C:\Windows\Command\SetVer.Exe

Under Windows-nt, Windows-2000 or Windows-XP you need to add a line into the C:\windows\system32\Config.NT file on your computer saying DEVICEHIGH=C:\Windows\System32\SetVer.Exe. (Note that on some systems the WINDOWS folder may be called WINNT in which case you should type WINNT instead of WINDOWS wherever it appears.

On both computers you need a copy of the BACKUP.EXE and RESTORE.EXE programs (which are in the MSSDOS6.22 folder on our distribution CD). These should be saved into the C:\Windows folder or C:\Winnt folder (whichever your computer uses for it's Windows folder). Then click on START then RUN then enter COMMAND.COM and click on OK. Now type SETVER BACKUP.EXE 5.00 and press the ENTER key. Then type SETVER RESTORE.EXE 6.22 and press the ENTER key. Then reboot your system and hopefully these programs will work.

Note that you should be using the ZIPPED BACKUP method and not the BU backup method anyway now as it is faster, more reliable and uses less disks. The Zipped backup method uses PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE to do it's dirty work for us rather than Microsoft's BACKUP.EXE and RESTORE.EXE programs which Microsoft no longer supply anyway.

Restoring a Previous Backup

• You want to print reports or do an inquiry based on a prior months data
• Your database has been corrupted or lost for some other reason and you need to go back to the last known, good copy
• You have installed our software onto a new computer and you need to also get your data there.

If your backup was done over two or more floppy disks then you need to insert the LAST diskette FIRST and the program will read the index from that disk and then ask you to insert the FIRST diskette followed then by each diskette in sequence otherwise just insert the backup disk that you want to restore from.

Note that restoring an old backup will normally overwrite your current data with the old data so you will lose your current database. Now this may be exactly what you want to do (eg if your current database is corrupted) but if it's not then you need to Backup your current database first.

Let's say that in October you wanted to restore the previous end of year backup in order to print a lost report and then you want to continue with your current database. To do this follow these steps....

1. Backup your current database
2. Note down the name and location of your current database which is then the Title Bar of the program at the top of the screen.
3. Restore your old database
4. Verify that the restored database contains the information that you are looking for by printing a report etc
5. Print whatever reports/inquiries you wanted to produce from this database
6. At this stage it would be a good idea to save this database under a different name in case you need to access it again so save it using a name like dataYYMM.MDB where you replace YY and MM in the name with the correct year and month (eg 0406 for June 2004)
7. Restore the backup of your original database that you made in step 1
8. Choose SELECT NEW DATABASE from the FILE menu on the main screen to change back to your original database that you have just restored (the file name noted down in step 2)

If you have the PERFORM DAILY HARD DISK BACKUP AS WELL ticked when you did your backup the system will have saved a copy of your database under a name starting with the day of the week (eg Mon, Tue, Wed etc). You can also restore these backups which enables you to go back (up to a week ago) and restore backups without requiring you to use the floppy disks. To do this you DON'T click on the RESTORE button but you use the RESTORE menu and then select the RESTORE DAILY/MONTHLY HARD DISK BACKUP option. The system will then display a list of saved databases for you to choose from. Double click on the one that you want to restore (eg click on WED-????.MDB to restore the backup made last Wednesday. (The ???? area will vary depending on the name of your database). The database will be restored in a few seconds without requiring any disks.

Also, as part of your month end processing, you may be saving a copy of your database as say RENT0312.MDB where the RENT portion means that it's a Rent Master database (or BROK = Ausbroker or PAY = Payroll etc) and the 03 means 2003 and the 12 means December. This is offered as an automatic option on the month end menu. If you did this then you can just open these backups directly and print reports etc from them. Don't forget to change back to your live database once you have finished though. To change database you click on the FILE menu in your program and choose SELECT NEW DATABASE and then double click on the database that you wish to look at.

AutoSave Automatic Backup Program

They can backup to your own hard drive or to a hard drive on another computer in your network. They can also make multiple backup copies (say 5 copies) so that each time you change the data it saves a new copy of the data until it has five separate copies. After that each time a new copy is made the oldest copy is automatically deleted. This means that you may be automatically copying your data MANY times a day. It will backup databases, word and excel documents etc. You can exclude certain document types and include other document types and exclude very large files (the default is to exclude files larger than 5Mb from being copied - since your database is probably larger than this you will need to expand this limit).

Note that this does not replace your normal backup procedures as this backup is not secure and it is not off-site so if your office burns down - you will lose your data unless you have a copy held off site.

Internet Backup Solutions

There are also internet based backup solutions. They are probably not so good for backups of your accounting data as they won't make proper daily backups (unless you activate them manually) but they are good for backing up your photos, letters, spreadsheets etc. I use the Carbonite service which costs around US$55.00 a year for almost unlimited backup storage. I backup all of my program source code, my pictures, my email and all of my documents (over 20Gb of data) to their server in the USA and I have tested accessing it from another computer to download a file stored on their server (and it worked!!)

If you have the option to DO A DAILY HARD DISK BACKUP ticked and you backup to CD or USB memory stick each day and if you tell Carbonite to backup the C:\RentMstr or C:\Broker folder where your data and backups are stored then it will keep copies of all of your backups on-line which you can then access at any time that you like (provided you remember your carbonite username and password). This is a pretty good backup as, not only is it "off site" it isn't stored in Australia.

Carbonite took several days to complete it's first complete backup but now just backs up the changed files which can be quite quick. Because it is UPLOADING data to their server and not DOWNLOADING data from their server it doesn't impact on your internet download limit (unless you are with BigPond who often charge for both uploads and downloads). Obviously if your computer was stolen and you wanted to download your backups onto a new computer then you may well blow your whole monthly download allowance on your data restore!

Backing Up to CD (CDR or CDRW)

• Install a CD Rewritable drive or a DVD rewritable drive into your main computer
• Install Nero Burning ROM or Nero Express software into your main computer (this software is normally supplied WITH your new CDRW drive. If other software was supplied then you will need to purchase a copy of Nero or Nero Express separately as our backup will only work with Nero
• Download and install WinZip Vsn 9
• Download and install WinZip Command Line Interface
• Download and install our extra Utils programs.
• Download and install the latest Ausbroker or Rent Master program update onto all of your computers AFTER doing the above steps.
• Go into the backup program and make sure that
  • Erase Disk Before Backup is selected
  • BACKUP TO is set to the CDRW drive
  • Perform a Daily Hard Disk Backup option is ticked
  • Use Winzip instead of PkZip is ticked
  • The combo box below the EXIT button is set to N:NeroCMD
• Insert a normal CDR or CDRW disk and click on the BACKUP button to make a backup

Once you have setup the backup program in this manner you should be able to backup your database directly to either CDR or CDRW media. In each case the CD will be erased before it is used and so you can't store any other information on the CD. Whether using either CDR or CDRW media the CD will be written in ISO format (not UDF format) which means that it can be read in any normal CD ROM drive with no extra driver software required. This means that a CDRW disk cannot be also used for normal "drag and drop" copying as well as once it has been written it will be set to READ-ONLY status. However a CDRW disk can be reused by our backup program in the same way that a floppy disk may be reused since the NeroCMD program will automatically erase the CDRW before using it.

Note that if you choose to use CDR disks then they can only be backed up onto ONCE although you can RESTORE from them any number of times. So once you have backed up to a CDR disk you need to label it to show what data is on it and store it away. Since you can buy a spindle of 50 or 100 CDR disks for around $20 to $40 this is a reasonably cheap way to generate a permanent backup history.

Alternate backup method on Win-98

If you are still using Windows-98 then you can use either Roxio's DirectCD or Nero's INCD programs to ZIP DIRECT to a CDRW drive. This means that you need not purchase Nero Express if you don't already have it but it is preferable to purchase Nero and use the method outlined above anyway. If you wish to use the Zip Direct method then you need to install Roxio's Direct CD software onto your computer and choose Z:Zip Direct instead of N:NeroCMD but otherwise all of the other instructions above apply.

However, you really should upgrade to Windows-XP as it is much more reliable than Windows-98

Alternate backup method on Win-2000 or Win-XP

Using Win-XP in-built CD burning software

IF you have Windows-XP and a CD burner but don't have Nero or Nero Express it is possible to use Windows in-built CD burning feature. To to this follow the instructions above except choose the option X:Windows-XP Burning instead. When you attempt to eject the CDRW disk you will need to follow another step to have Windows-XP actually burn the information onto the CD as the backup program can only put the backup data into a temporary folder ready for win-xp to burn it later.

Problems with Backup using Windows NT, 2000 or XP

You also can't use WINZIP to format floppy disks during the backup whether you are using Windows-XP or Windows-NT OR the older Windows-95 or Windows-98. If you are still using Windows-95 or Windows-98 we suggest that you install PkZip 2.50 and use this to backup your data and select the FORMAT option to do so. If you have Windows-NT, Windows-2000 or Windows-XP then install and use WinZip to do the backups and just use the ERASE option.

If you get the message to insert disk two and the backup program won't continue after this even though you HAVE inserted disk two then you are experiencing a problem with PKZIP version 2.04g which is the version that we previously supplied with our software. This version has a problem with Windows NT, 2000 and XP. You can download a newer version ( PkZip 2.50 ) from our web site Downloads page or, better still, you can use Winzip 9.0 and the WinZip Command Line Add-On to do the backups instead. If you STILL have the problem after installing PKZIP 2.5 then you'll have to change to using WinZip Vsn 8.1 or later to do the job.

Also many people have had problems copying to CDRW disks under Windows-2000 and Windows-XP although this is possible (see below).

Copying to CDRW disks under Windows XP using Windows Explorer

We have now had success copying to CDRW disks under Windows-XP using our backup program after installing the latest version of NERO BURNING ROM software and their INCD packet writing software. So if you are using this software then it DOES appear that it will work. You need to be using Mt Rainier formatted CDRW disks (ie CD-MRW disks) and you can use Nero (and possibly Roxio Easy CD Creator) to create the disks in this format. To use a CD-MRW disc format - See Below)

If you can't get the CD-MRW method to work then this is a case of Microsoft improving a system so much that now it doesn't work. Sorry - nothing that we can do about it - you'll have to use Windows Explorer to copy the database to the CDRW disk yourself. To copy the backup using Windows explorer....

• Go into your GO Software program (eg Rent Master, Payroll, Ausbroker, Acctng etc) and look at the title bar at the top of the page. It will say something like
  RENTMSTR: (H:\RENTMSTR\RENTYOUR.MDB)
  which tells you the name and location of your database file. Write this down (carefully). You can also find out what your Program Folder is by using this method.
• Start up Windows Explorer (START then PROGRAMS then ACCESSORIES then WINDOWS EXPLORER - normally it's START then PROGRAMS then WINDOWS EXPLORER but in Windows-XP they moved it!!!)
• Navigate to the location of your database (eg in the example above it's H:\RENTMSTR) You can find out what your Database Location Folder is by using this method.
• Locate your database name (eg RENTYOUR.MDB in the example above), click on it with the RIGHT mouse button and choose COPY.
• Now, navigate to your CDRW drive (make sure that there is a CDRW disk in the drive). Click on it with the RIGHT mouse button and choose PASTE. This will make a copy of your database onto the CD.
• If you get a message about the file exists - do you want to over-write it - answer YES.

If you want to put multiple copies onto the same CDRW disk then you'll need to create empty folders onto the CDRW disk using Windows Explorer (eg call the folders Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc or January, February, March etc or (Jan-2003, Feb-2003, Mar-2003 etc) or perhaps give the folders names based on the date (eg 2002-12-01, 2002-12-02 etc - I have entered the dates backwards so that the folders will be sorted in date order). Now when you do the PASTE option right click on the FOLDER on the CD that you want to save to instead of copying to the CD Root Folder.

To create folders using Windows Explorer left click on the CD drive in Explorer then choose FILE then NEW then FOLDER then enter the folder name and click on OK.

If, when you are looking for your database file, you see several files with the same name but no .MDB on the end of them then you will be the victim of another of Microsoft's "making it easier for you by hiding stuff from you" capers. To correct this click on the TOOLS menu in Explorer and then PROGRAM OPTIONS then the VIEW tab and then make your settings match the list below.

Easy Copying to CD-MRW disks under Windows XP using Mt Rainier

Mt Rainier Logo

There is a new type of CDRW disc format called CD-MRW using "Mt Rainier" technology. If your CD drive supports CD-MRW AND your CD burning software supports CD-MRW then this should work for you. InCD Vsn 3.5 and later (which comes with Ahead Nero Vsn 5.50 and above) does. Then you can just format your rewritable CDs as CD-MRW and use our standard backup program to backup to them under Windows-XP.

Easy Write Logo

You can get more information about CD-MRW and which CDRW drives have been tested to work with it by going to www.mt-rainier.org. There is also a short list here on our web site. This technology was developed jointly by SONY, Philips and Microsoft. You can download a simple test program which will tell you whether your CD-RW drive will support Mt Rainier by clicking Ahead Nero InfoTool and looking on the DRIVE tab to see whether the box marked "Mount Rainier" is ticked or not. You can also see on the SOFTWARE tab what software you have loaded (inCD or Direct CD etc) and their versions.

CD-MRW (CD Mount Rainier Rewrite) will probably totally replace floppy disk drives, as CD-MRW finally simplifies using CD-RW media. It means that you can use them in exactly the same way as you would a floppy disk. Drives supporting CD-MRW include defect management and provide a more "standard" format for CD-RW discs. Windows-XP even supports these discs without having to use Ahead Nero or Easy CD Creator or other such software.

CD-MRW also provides for Formatting the CD in the background while normal CDRW requires that the disc be formatted first and this takes a very long time. With CD-MRW, formatting is now automated and when a disc is inserted into the CD-MRW drive, a background format will be carried out. Data can even be written to CD-MRW during the actual formatting process, eliminating wasted time altogether.

CD-MRW discs can be ejected at any time (Just like a floppy disk) even before the formatting process is complete. Once the disc is reinserted into the recorder, formatting simply continues where it left off.

CD-MRW has hardware based fault management so if a CD-MRW is scratched or damaged the drive just skips that part of the disk enabling you to use the rest of the disk with no problems. This is done by the CDRW drive automatically.

Until recently we hadn't been able to identify ANY DVD Writer drives that support Mt Rainier format - only CD-RW drives. (Sony's DRU-500A DOES support it). However Mt Rainier format can be supported on DVD writer drives but only for DVD+RW (DVD plus RW) disks and not DVD-RW (DVD minus RW) Disks. We presume that when DVD writer drives DO support Mt Rainier DVD+RW disks then they will ALSO support normal CD-RW disks as well (which is all that you would need).

To use INCD using our backup program you MAY have to DISABLE the Windows CD-RW function using a program like Tweak-XP. To do this using Tweak-XP....Open Tweak-XP, click on SYSTEM PERFORMANCE then HARDWARE TWEAKS then CD/DVD Tweaks then DISABLE THE WINDOWS-XP CD BURNING FEATURE. You can download a trial copy of Tweak-XP from
www.tweak-xp.de.You can also turn Windows-XP's built-in CD burning function on or off by clicking into MY COMPUTER and then RIGHT-clicking on the CDRW drive and choosing PROPERTIES from the pop-up menu and then clicking on the RECORDING tab across the top of the dialog box. .

A word of warning - Tweak-XP enables you to do ALL sorts of tweaks to Windows (like turning off the stupid "shortcut to..." descriptions and getting rid of the silly arrows on shortcuts and best of all - disabling the Windows-XP Error Reports where it comes up with a message about sending an error report to Microsoft) but it can also enable you to stuff up your system in a big way if you make the WRONG changes so, if you use it, be careful.

Another way of testing whether writing to the CD-RW will work with our backup software (DATABACK) would be to click on START then RUN then enter COMMAND.COM and click on OK and then attempt to copy a file to the CD using the MS-DOS copy command eg
COPY C:\Windows\Win.Ini D:
or
COPY C:\WinNT\Win.Ini D:
which should copy the file C:\Windows\Win.Ini to the drive D: (which should be your CD although it may be a different drive letter). If you get an ACCESS DENIED error or message about the disk being READ-ONLY or WRITE PROTECTED or a similar message then it won't work with your current settings and you may need to

• Install a later version of Roxio Direct CD or Nero InCD software
• and/or Turn off the CD burning function inbuilt into Windows-XP
• and/or Install a later model CD-RW drive

The steps to using a CD-MRW disk to do a backup are...

1. verify that your software (In-CD or alternative) works with CD-MRW
2. verify that your CD-RW drive works with CD-MRW (see www.mt-rainier.org)
3. Insert a new CD-RW into your drive
4. In-CD should pop-up and ask you if you want to format the CD. If it doesn't then go into Windows Explorer, locate the CDRW drive under MY COMPUTER, RIGHT click on it (with the RIGHT mouse button!!) and choose IN-CD FORMAT from the popup menu.
5. Under OPTIONS check that the box marked MRW FORMAT ON ALL MRW COMPATIBLE DRIVES is ticked. If you can't tick this box then your drive probably won't work with this format.
6. Click on APPLY and then click on START or FORMAT to format the CD-MRW. This will take some time (10 mins)
7. Once the disk has been formatted go into our backup program and click on the FLOPPY menu and choose CHECK FOR OTHER BACKUP DRIVES. Now when you look in the BACKUP TO box you should see your floppy drive A: and your CDRW drive as well. You may also see ZIP drives and/or LS-120 drives if you also have these.
8. Select the CDRW drive as the one to use. Make sure that the option in the top left hand corner says ERASE DISK BEFORE COPY and not FORMAT disk before copy.
9. You should probably ALSO be using WinZip to do this so if you haven't installed WinZip and the WinZip Command Line Interface then you should do that as well.
10. Click on the BACKUP button to backup to the CD.
11. If it all works ok then it should take several minutes and give you a message similar to the message after backing up to floppy disks.
12. If you go into Windows Explorer and double click on the CD-RW drive in the left hand pane you should see a backup of your database shown as the only file in the right hand pane.

New method of backing up to CDR and/or CDRW Disks using NeroCMD

We have just found out about a command line interface program which works with Ahead Nero version 6.0 and later. It also works with the latest versions of Nero Express which is often supplied with CDRW drives. if you don't have the correct version of Nero or Nero Express you can download a free TRIAL version (works for 30 days) from Nero's web site (ahead.de/en) by clicking on Nero 6 under the DOWNLOAD section on the left of the screen. You can also purchase Nero 6 from this web site or it is also available from us or other computer suppliers.

You need to download and install the Utils.Exe file from our web site for this to work PLUS you must have Nero Version 6.0 or Nero Express 6.0 (or later) installed onto your computer. Then install the latest program update from our web site and the next time you go into the backup program tick the box marked USE NeroCMD. You will also need to click on the FLOPPY menu in the backup program and choose the option to CHECK FOR OTHER BACKUP DRIVES before the backup program will display your CDRW drive in the list shown under BACKUP TO.

Note that this method will work with CDR and/or CDRW disks with any CD writer/re writer (as far as we know) but in each case it only writes the one backup file to the CDR or CDRW (and for CDRW disks it will erase whatever is already on the disk).

If you are using CDR disks (about $0.50 or less each these days) then you can only backup to the disks ONCE so after you have done one backup onto the disk then label it with the current date and time (and what is on it) and file it away. CDR disks CANNOT be re-used and so it's only use after the backup is to be able to restore the database back to your computer (or another computer).

If you are backing up to CDRW disks then the first thing it will do is erase the current contents of the CDRW disk and then backup your database to the disk. While this is wasteful of space on the CDRW (as it will never be anywhere close to being full) these disks are very cheap now so it doesn't really matter.

So far with our testing we have been successful at backing up to CDR and CDRW disks under Windows-98, Windows-2000 and Windows-XP using both Nero and Nero Express.

Restoring One of these CDR or CDRW backups

You can restore these backups in the same way that you restore any other backup made using our backup program - just click on the RESTORE DATABASE button.

At this stage we are writing CDRW disks in ISO (CDFS) format which is the same format used for CDR discs. This means that they will be able to be read on ANY CD drive. The normal format for CDRW is UDF (or better still Mt Rainier MRW) but disks written in this format can only be read in other CD drives if UDF reader software has been loaded onto the computer first. Disks in UDF (or MRW) format have the added feature that you can copy to them using the "drag and drop" functions in Windows Explorer.

Backing up onto CDR disks instead of CD-RW or CD-MRW

To backup to CDR disks you need to use a CD burning program such as Ahead Nero Burning ROM or Roxio Easy CD Creator as you can't just copy to these disks like you would to a floppy disk. To copy the backup using CD burning software you first have to know how to use this software (read their help notes) and then....

• Go into your GO Software program (eg Rent Master, Payroll, Ausbroker, Acctng etc) and look at the title bar at the top of the page. It will say something like
  RENTMSTR: (H:\RENTMSTR\RENTYOUR.MDB)
  which tells you the name and location of your database file. Write this down (carefully). You can also find out what your Program Folder is by using this method.
• Start up you CD burning software (Nero or Easy CD Creator)
• Navigate to the location of your database (eg in the example above it's H:\RENTMSTR) You can find out what your Database Location Folder is by using this method.
• Locate your database name (eg RENTYOUR.MDB in the example above), click on it and drag it across and drop it onto the list of files to burn on the CD.
• Choose the BURN NOW option to write to the CDR disk.

If you want to put multiple copies onto the same CDR disk then you may need to create an image of what you want to burn on your hard disk by copying and/or renaming the files that you want to burn and then burn that image onto the CD.

Restoring from a CDR backup

Using Windows-XP Built In CD Burning

To actually write the files to the CD you can just attempt to eject the CDRW disk and Windows should warn you that there are files queued to be written to a CD and ask you if you want to do it now. Another way to force them to be written to the CD is to right click on your CDRW drive in MY COMPUTER and choose WRITE THESE FILES TO CD from the pop-up menu.

Our backup program (DataBack) now has an option to use the Windows built-in CD Burning function by copying a zipped up copy of your database to the Windows CD Burning Temporary Storage Area. Choose from the following options to burn CDs under Windows-XP

• N:NeroCMD uses the Nero Command Line Interface program to write to a CDR or CDRW disk
• X:Win-Xp Burn uses Windows-XP's built in CD burning function (won't work with Win-98 etc)
• Z:Zip Direct will use Nero InCD to copy to a CDRW disk formatted the MRW format

You can turn Windows-XP's built-in CD burning function on or off by clicking into MY COMPUTER and then RIGHT-clicking on the CDRW drive and choosing PROPERTIES from the pop-up menu and then clicking on the RECORDING tab across the top of the dialog box.