problem , Quicken backup , ext . drive

Posted by William Fletcher on December 13, 2007, 1:41 pm

Please log in for more thread options

: quoted-printable

BlankMy Quicken, 2004 does not allow simple backup. One has to go =
through a complicated process of changing files, , burning on a disc, =
etc. I bought a portable external hard drive to back up everything on =
my "C" drive. When I check on the backup, I find Quicken files from =
years back but not the current files. Does the original problem with =
"internal" backup block my attempt to copy files to an external hard =
drive? The ext. hard drive is a pain in the posterior. It is a Toshiba =
with software entitled Shadow, NTI. Any assistance appreciated. Bill =
Fletcher

------=_NextPart_001_0031_01C83D8D.DEDA4A30
Content-Type: text/html;
        charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE id=3DridTitle>Blank</TITLE>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Dwindows-1252"><BASE=20
href=3D"file://C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft =
SharedStationery">
<STYLE>BODY {
        MARGIN-TOP: 25px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN-LEFT: 25px; COLOR: #000000; =
FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica
}
P.msoNormal {
        MARGIN-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN-LEFT: 0px; COLOR: #ffffcc; =
FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica, "Times New Roman"
}
LI.msoNormal {
        MARGIN-TOP: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN-LEFT: 0px; COLOR: #ffffcc; =
FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica, "Times New Roman"
}
</STYLE>

<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.6000.16587" name=3DGENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY id=3DridBody bgColor=3D#ffffff=20
background=3Dcid:002b01c83db7$c7ab9740$aa393d42@computer>
<DIV>My Quicken, 2004  does not allow simple backup. One has to go =
through=20
a complicated process of changing files, , burning on a disc, =
etc.  I=20
bought a portable external hard drive to back up everything on my "C"=20
drive.  When I check on the backup, I find Quicken files from years =
back=20
but not the current files.  Does the original problem with =
"internal"=20
backup  block my attempt to copy files to an external hard drive? =
The ext.=20
hard drive is a pain in the posterior.  It is a Toshiba with =
software=20
entitled Shadow, NTI.  Any assistance appreciated.  Bill=20
Fletcher</DIV>
<P> </P></BODY></HTML>

------=_NextPart_001_0031_01C83D8D.DEDA4A30--

------=_NextPart_000_0030_01C83D8D.DEDA4A30
Content-Type: image/gif;
        name="Blank Bkgrd.gif"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

R0lGODlhLQAtAID/AP////f39ywAAAAALQAtAEACcAxup8vtvxKQsFon6d02898pGkgiYoCm6sq2
7iqWcmzOsmeXeA7uPJd5CYdD2g9oPF58ygqz+XhCG9JpJGmlYrPXGlfr/Yo/VW45e7amp2tou/lW
xo/zX513z+Vt+1n/tiX2pxP4NUhy2FM4xtjIUQAAOw==

------=

Posted by R. C. White on December 13, 2007, 6:09 pm

Please log in for more thread options

Hi, Bill.

You must be doing something wrong. I'm using Quicken 2008 now, but I've
used most versions since about 1990. The only complication I've encountered
was in burning CDs a few years ago. Now I use USB thumb drives and don't
have any such problems anymore. In fact, I usually backup only to a
separate internal drive daily and then to the USB drive every week or so.

As we've discussed here many times, Quicken provides for 3 kinds of backup:

1. Automatic backup - Every week, without even asking, Quicken backs up
the entire fileset (the *.qdf file and related files) to the BACKUP
subfolder that it creates in the folder where your working fileset resides.

2. Reminded backup - Every 3rd time that you exit Quicken, it will remind
you to backup to the location of YOUR CHOICE. The location is entirely up
to you and you can change the default value to whatever number of exits
makes you comfy.

3. Voluntary backup - As often as you like - even multiple times within a
single session if you like - you can click Backup (or File | Backup, or
press <Ctrl>+B) and get the Backup screen where you can choose where to
backup this time. If you like, you can make multiple backups to multiple
locations, just by changing the destination folder name on the backup
screen.

Click Edit | Preferences | Quicken Program | Backup to change the defaults
for the first and second kinds of backup. Read it carefully because it's
easy to misinterpret this screen. The first line is for what I've called
#2, Reminded backups; this number is 3 by default, but you can change it if
you are being reminded too often - or not often enough. The second line
sets the number of automatic weekly backups (my #1) that Quicken makes; the
default is 5, but you can change it. (The first weekly backup creates files
QDATA1.QDF, QDATA1.QEL, etc. A week later, the QDATA1.* files are renamed
QDATA2, then a new QDATA1 set is created. After the 6th week, the QDATA5
set is deleted before the 1-thru-4 sets are incremented. At any time after
the 5th week, you should have 5 full sets of backups, numbered from 1 thru 5
and dated a week apart, all in the BACKUP subfolder, in addition to any
other backups that you may have created under my #2 or #3.)

Backups targeted at the CD worked well up to about 2002. But in 2003, as I
recall, WinXP changed the behavior. Even though Quicken told us that the
backup to CD was successful, that was not true. Quicken/WinXP had actually
written our data to a folder ON THE HARD DISK, a holding area to be written
to the CD later. Before we realized what was happening, many of us did not
take the final step of forcing this data to be copied from that holding area
to the CD, using Nero or Roxio or some other CD burning software. Later
versions of Windows have smoothed this process somewhat, but too late for
me - and for many other users, I think. As I said, I now skip the CD
altogether in favor of the much easier-to-use USB thumb drive.

One problem with the USB drive is that the drive letter can shift from one
use to the next unless we make the simple effort to pin it down. To do
this, use Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to (semi-)permanently assign a
non-conflicting letter to the thumb drive so that it will get the same
letter each time we plug it into the USB port. If you want it to always be
T: (for Thumb) or U: (for USB), then assign that letter, rather than let DM
assign the lowest available letter on each insertion. We also can
right-click the disk in DM, then click Properties | Policies and select
Optimize for quick removal (rather than Optimize for performance) so that
the system will write our data to the thumb drive immediately, rather than
cache the writes, and we don't have to worry about the Safely Remove
Hardware setting; just "pull the plug" a second or two after the backup is
done.

I've not used an external hard drive, but it seems to me that the backup
procedure should work very much like it does with a thumb drive. If it
doesn't, I hope another reader will jump in here and educate both of us.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Quicken 2008 Deluxe in Vista Ultimate x64)

> BlankMy Quicken, 2004 does not allow simple backup. One has to go through

> a complicated process of changing files, , burning on a disc, etc. I

> bought a portable external hard drive to back up everything on my "C"

> drive. When I check on the backup, I find Quicken files from years back

> but not the current files. Does the original problem with "internal"

> backup block my attempt to copy files to an external hard drive? The ext.

> hard drive is a pain in the posterior. It is a Toshiba with software

> entitled Shadow, NTI. Any assistance appreciated. Bill Fletcher

Posted by JimH on December 15, 2007, 1:03 pm

Please log in for more thread options

William Fletcher wrote:

> My Quicken, 2004 does not allow simple backup. One has to go through

> a complicated process of changing files, , burning on a disc, etc. I

> bought a portable external hard drive to back up everything on my "C"

> drive. When I check on the backup, I find Quicken files from years back

> but not the current files. Does the original problem with "internal"

> backup block my attempt to copy files to an external hard drive? The

> ext. hard drive is a pain in the posterior. It is a Toshiba with

> software entitled Shadow, NTI. Any assistance appreciated. Bill Fletcher

I'm not sure exactly what your problem is, but I do remember a problem
with Q-2004. It was introduced at one of the patch levels. It would then
only use Windows CD writing for backup. I uninstalled Quicken, then
reinstalled, but did not let it install the later patch. That worked
fine for a long time. Later, I upgraded to Q-2006, which also worked fine.

I've now upgraded to Q-2007, which also doesn't perform backups properly
to CD drives. Now, I've installed "Karens Replicator" which I saw
recommended here (http://www.karenware.com). It works great, and
performs backups very nicely. I set it up to create dated folders for
each backup, then copy the Quicken files into the dated folders. MY
normal method is to back up to a CD each day, then when the CD fills,
take it to my safe deposit at the bank, then start on a new CD. Each
blank CD lasts about a month until it is full.

I can't imagine anything that the Quicken backup could have done that
would prevent you from backing up the files using some other method. I
doubt that is what caused that problem, but there isn't enough
information in your post to determine what went wrong there.

-Jim-

Posted by jo on December 15, 2007, 5:02 pm

Please log in for more thread options

Jim,

This is somewhat off the specific topic of quicken backup, but since
it's related to CD backup in general, and happening to show up, for
me, when I back up Quicken, I'm taking the liberty to ask here.

I've recently upgraded my dinosaur from ME to XP and learned how to
burn cds. With ME I was using an ancient version of EZ CD Creator to
make my Quicken backups from 4 zip files which I rotated thru on a
rather haphazard basis. EZ CD copied the 4 zip files, or any
individual one that I updated, to my CDRW, with the same date that is
on the hard drive copy. Now that I am using XP's builtin function, I
notice that the file dates are the date of the burn, not the dates of
the file, so that if I were to need to distinguish one file from
another by just looking at the CD, I couldn't (well, I probably could,
in that they just get bigger). Is this standard for the CD burner
that comes with XP and does newer Roxio (or other) burning software
"fix" this?

Thanks,

jo

Posted by JimH on December 16, 2007, 12:24 pm

Please log in for more thread options

jo wrote:

> Jim,

> This is somewhat off the specific topic of quicken backup, but since

> it's related to CD backup in general, and happening to show up, for

> me, when I back up Quicken, I'm taking the liberty to ask here.

> I've recently upgraded my dinosaur from ME to XP and learned how to

> burn cds. With ME I was using an ancient version of EZ CD Creator to

> make my Quicken backups from 4 zip files which I rotated thru on a

> rather haphazard basis. EZ CD copied the 4 zip files, or any

> individual one that I updated, to my CDRW, with the same date that is

> on the hard drive copy. Now that I am using XP's builtin function, I

> notice that the file dates are the date of the burn, not the dates of

> the file, so that if I were to need to distinguish one file from

> another by just looking at the CD, I couldn't (well, I probably could,

> in that they just get bigger). Is this standard for the CD burner

> that comes with XP and does newer Roxio (or other) burning software

> "fix" this?

> Thanks,

> jo

I use the Roxio software instead of the XP burning software. The files
are burned to the CD when they get written by the application, just as
they were with the older EZCD Creator. The dates reflect that. The XP
method of writing the files to a holding area on the disk, then burning
them at some future date never did seem like a good way to go.

For Quicken, I've been using the option to add the date to the file
names. This created unique file names for each backup. Now, with Karen's
Replicator, I have it create a directory that includes the date in the
name, then copy the files into that directory. I use CDR's, and take
them to the bank when they are full. I used to use a single CDRW, but
I've had them go bad, so that they could not be read. Having multiple
backup copies, even if they are a little old seemed better than trusting
one fragile plastic disk with all of my critical data. Buying blank
CDR's by the spool makes them too cheap to worry about the cost.

-Jim-