Diskette Backup Procedure for Basic Builder

You may use the default backup as provided in Basic Builder (either pre-processing or housekeeping) to your hard drive as often as you desire.  A tape backup system for Basic Builder folder is recommended in the event that there is a hard disk failure.  However, be sure you are also making Housekeeping backups on diskettes (in some semblance of order) on a daily (or workday) basis.  Keep in mind that these may be very helpful in the event that errors occur in your data, software, or hardware.  If a diskette or tape is bad, another backup (from the same day or the day before – hopefully not the week or month before!) could save a lot of re-entry work.  The frequency of your backups depends on how often you work in Basic Builder and how much work is too much to have to re-enter if the restore of a backup (from the hard drive, diskette(s), or tape) fails!  It is your decision.

How to label your diskettes:

1. Label each diskette(s) with the day of the week, date, and time.             

2. Each Monday to Thursday, you might re-format and verify the previous week’s diskette(s) (see below) and then re-label them for this week. 

3. Be sure to keep the Friday diskette(s) for each week of the month. (label them: Friday-1, Friday-2, Friday-3, Friday-4, and Friday-5, if the month has five Fridays).

4. On the last day of the month, keep the diskette(s) for that day (which could be any  day:  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday) and it will become the “end-of-month” diskette(s). Label them:  jan-2003, feb-2003, mar-2003, and so on.  You should keep these with the year end diskette(s) for as long as your accountant recommends (this may vary as your fiscal year may not end in December.)

5. At the of the calendar and fiscal years (in each company), do a “end-of-year housekeeping backup” (one before closing and one after closing the last month of the year) – this should not replace the normal backup of the day. 

Formatting a diskette in Windows:

• Insert a diskette into your computer’s floppy-drive.

• Double-click on My Computer on your Windows desktop.

• Right-click on “3 ½ floppy A:” and select Format

• Follow the on-screen instructions

Verifying your Diskettes:

1. Insert the diskette into the floppy-drive.

2. Go to Start => Run and type “command”. Click OK and you will see a DOS prompt.

3. Type “dir a:” and press the <enter> key

4. If the screen displays, “file not found . . 1,457,664 bytes free”, then the diskette is safe to use.  However, if it shows less “bytes free” then the diskette needs to be formatted. If it says, “abort, retry, or fail?” select “a” to abort and re-format the diskette.

5. Type “exit” to leave the DOS prompt.

Performing a Housekeeping Backup with your Diskettes

• In Basic Builder select Modules => Housekeeping => Make Backup

• Select To Floppy Drive A and click Make Backup

• Put a properly labeled, formatted, and verified diskette into your computer’s diskette drive.

• Click OK and the Housekeeping Backup will begin.

[[Back]