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Posted by dampshop on September 24, 2007, 11:13 pm
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I recently decommissioned my old (back-up) Win98 computer and replaced
it with a 2-year old Dell Optiplex.
As I was hacking away at the old box, my IT guru (son-in-law) said
'what about your Quicken data", referring to transferring it to the
new computer. My response was "I've backed it up every few days for
the last 6 years on CDs, through Quicken. I've followed their
recommendations and done alternate disks, so I've got two CDs that are
current."
Based on my confidence, we re-formatted the hard disk from the W98 box
to re-use as a slave in the new one. After we'd configured the new
box, Win XP, Sanyo CD-ROM drive, all kinds of speed and power, I
loaded a copy of Quicken 2007 Pro. After signing in as a user of a
previous version of Qucken, I tried to load the historical data off
the archive disk. To my chagrin, the new box said the disk was
unintelligible. Apparently, Quicken's method of recording the data on
CD is not in a universally recognized format. but in one related to
the type of CD drive you have.
When I tried to read the data with a UDF reader, there were no data
files on the disk, just an aotu-run file and a UDF reader.
Has anyone any guidance as to how I can retrieve 6 years-worth of
data, that I assumed was saved at twice a week intervals, that seems
to have been recorded in a format that only Mr. Spock can read?
Frank Damp
Anacortes, WA
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Posted by R. C. White on September 25, 2007, 9:31 am
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Hi, Fred.
Step 1: Don't panic!
Remember: You don't need ALL those backups. You need just ONE - the latest
one, you hope.
For the future (not much help today), remember that Backup is easy, but
Restore is the critical step. We all should Restore every now and then just
to verify that we really can do it when the need arises.
> Based on my confidence, we re-formatted the hard disk from the W98 box
Depending on HOW you reformatted it, and how you've used that drive since,
there is a skinny chance that at least one of your data files is still there
and recoverable with the right software and enough time, effort and patience
(or expense, in case you decide to try the professional route). So try to
not write to it until you've got this resolved.
In addition to all those "manual" backups you made to CD, Quicken should
have been making automatic backups to your hard drive every week. Those
would have gone into the BACKUP subfolder under the folder where your
working set of data resided. Unless you changed it, that folder would have
been C:QuickenBACKUP; but many of us do change the default, so we can't
guess where it would have been on YOUR system. Also, I've not looked at
Quicken 1997 in a decade, so I really don't remember how Q97 did some
things.
Others here have used CD backups much more than I have, so I'll let them
help on recovering data from those.
Good luck!
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Vista Ultimate x64)
> I recently decommissioned my old (back-up) Win98 computer and replaced
> it with a 2-year old Dell Optiplex.
>
> As I was hacking away at the old box, my IT guru (son-in-law) said
> 'what about your Quicken data", referring to transferring it to the
> new computer. My response was "I've backed it up every few days for
> the last 6 years on CDs, through Quicken. I've followed their
> recommendations and done alternate disks, so I've got two CDs that are
> current."
>
> Based on my confidence, we re-formatted the hard disk from the W98 box
> to re-use as a slave in the new one. After we'd configured the new
> box, Win XP, Sanyo CD-ROM drive, all kinds of speed and power, I
> loaded a copy of Quicken 2007 Pro. After signing in as a user of a
> previous version of Qucken, I tried to load the historical data off
> the archive disk. To my chagrin, the new box said the disk was
> unintelligible. Apparently, Quicken's method of recording the data on
> CD is not in a universally recognized format. but in one related to
> the type of CD drive you have.
>
> When I tried to read the data with a UDF reader, there were no data
> files on the disk, just an aotu-run file and a UDF reader.
>
> Has anyone any guidance as to how I can retrieve 6 years-worth of
> data, that I assumed was saved at twice a week intervals, that seems
> to have been recorded in a format that only Mr. Spock can read?
>
>
> Frank Damp
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Posted by dampshop on September 29, 2007, 11:18 pm
Please log in for more thread options RC:
I had no idea that Quicken could have been playing silly buggers with
the back-up. Every time I did one 9every few days as directed by
Quicken), I could see the CD drive firing up. It wouldn't let me
record until it was ready and wouldn't let me eject the disk until it
had finished.
I suspect it was using a feature in the late 1990's version of
DirectCD that allowed repeated writes and over-writes to a rewritable
disk. Unfortunately, these aren't compatible with other drives,
particularly those running under a different OS. I was really pissed
off today when I discovered that XP's "write to CD" program makes the
disk that you write to a one-time only disk - no editability - even if
it's a RW disk. My XP box also has Nero, so I guess I'll just have to
remember to always use that program instead of the stupid one that
Microshit embedded in its file management system.
I've posted a full definition of my problem under the other string and
I'm hoping for a miracle.
Frank Damp
Anacortes, WA
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Posted by R. C. White on September 30, 2007, 10:18 pm
Please log in for more thread options Hi, Frank.
As we've explained at length several times in this newsgroup, there are
three levels of backup in Quicken. Briefly:
1. Automatic. Quicken does this with no notice to us, entirely behind the
scenes, every 7 days, starting a week after we install the program. We can
decide how many weeks' backups to keep; the default is 5, and after that,
the oldest is deleted each week before the later ones' names are incremented
by one (QDATA1.QDF becomes QDATA2.QDF, etc.) and the current file is backed
up as C:QuickenBACKUPQDATA1.QDF, etc.
2. Reminded. Quicken reminds us (it doesn't "direct" us) to make a backup
after every 3rd (default) time that we exit the program, if we haven't
already made such a backup. The backup goes to wherever WE say: another
file on our main hard drive, or to a different hard drive, or to a floppy
disk, CD-R/RW, USB thumb drive...or wherever WE decide.
3. Voluntary. Without any kind of reminder, we can simply backup our files
at any time to wherever we choose. We should do these at certain mileposts,
such as after all year-end entries have been made, and store these milepost
backups away from the computer.
None of these backups are any help, of course, if they can't be restored -
but you don't need a reminder of that at this point. :>(
The default settings for the first and second backups are set at Edit |
Preferences | Quicken Program | Setup | Backup. The wording on that page is
confusing to many users, as we've also discussed here. Intuit has had a
decade or more to fix the confusion, but each year's program simply repeats
the one before. The first box is to choose how often Quicken should remind
us to make the second kind of backups. The second box is how many weeks'
automatic backups Quicken should keep. We can change these defaults, but
probably most users never do.
My own practice is to make voluntary backups at least once per session and
often much more often. This is a habit that I formed back when computers
and hard drives (and floppies) were much less reliable than now, and I often
lost several entries when my computer spontaneously rebooted in the middle
of a session. (For a long time, I would save after every check.) I seldom
see the reminder when I exit the program, because I've already backed up at
least once during the session. So I always have my latest voluntary backup
to a separate place on my hard drive, in addition to Quicken's automatic
backups. At least once a week, I also backup to a folder on a second
physical hard drive, just in case the first one dies. And at least monthly,
I also backup to a USB thumb drive which is stored separately from the
computer. And now and then, I also burn a CD - but not as religiously as I
should.
Quicken's backup-to-CD performance has varied over the past decade or so.
For a while, I used Nero's InCD packet-writing system, and it worked pretty
well. Then WinXP came along and, like you, I THOUGHT it was writing to the
CD, but it was not. It was saving my file in a folder on my hard drive,
READY to be written to CD, but the burn was not happening. When I realized
what was going on, I wrote a small batch file to write those files to CD,
but I didn't remember to run it very often. Recently, I've used a USB
drive; it's much more convenient than CD for me, and I remember to do it
more often.
None of that helps your current problem, though. About all I can suggest is
what I've already said: try to use some file recovery tools to find at
least one backup set that can be recovered from your old hard drive. But
that is really just clutching at straws, especially if that hard drive has
been used very much.
About all I can do is wish you good luck. :^{
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 beta)
> RC:
>
> I had no idea that Quicken could have been playing silly buggers with
> the back-up. Every time I did one 9every few days as directed by
> Quicken), I could see the CD drive firing up. It wouldn't let me
> record until it was ready and wouldn't let me eject the disk until it
> had finished.
>
> I suspect it was using a feature in the late 1990's version of
> DirectCD that allowed repeated writes and over-writes to a rewritable
> disk. Unfortunately, these aren't compatible with other drives,
> particularly those running under a different OS. I was really pissed
> off today when I discovered that XP's "write to CD" program makes the
> disk that you write to a one-time only disk - no editability - even if
> it's a RW disk. My XP box also has Nero, so I guess I'll just have to
> remember to always use that program instead of the stupid one that
> Microshit embedded in its file management system.
>
> I've posted a full definition of my problem under the other string and
> I'm hoping for a miracle.
>
> Frank Damp
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Posted by SunCityCal on October 1, 2007, 1:36 pm
Please log in for more thread options I would like to recommend you switch to a couple of flash drives for back-up
and back-up to a CD only occasionally for long term storage.
: RC:
:
: I had no idea that Quicken could have been playing silly buggers with
: the back-up. Every time I did one 9every few days as directed by
: Quicken), I could see the CD drive firing up. It wouldn't let me
: record until it was ready and wouldn't let me eject the disk until it
: had finished.
:
: I suspect it was using a feature in the late 1990's version of
: DirectCD that allowed repeated writes and over-writes to a rewritable
: disk. Unfortunately, these aren't compatible with other drives,
: particularly those running under a different OS. I was really pissed
: off today when I discovered that XP's "write to CD" program makes the
: disk that you write to a one-time only disk - no editability - even if
: it's a RW disk. My XP box also has Nero, so I guess I'll just have to
: remember to always use that program instead of the stupid one that
: Microshit embedded in its file management system.
:
: I've posted a full definition of my problem under the other string and
: I'm hoping for a miracle.
:
: Frank Damp
: Anacortes, WA
:
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