| My company
file is severely damaged and I need to go back to
a recent backup. How do I do that?
In rare cases, the data in your company file may become
so badly damaged that Goldenseal is not able to function.
This can happen from any of the following situations:
- If your hard drive suffers physical damage that erases some bits
within your company file.
- If Goldenseal is interrupted in the middle of a save because
of a system crash or power failure.
- If a software bug writes data
into the wrong place and damages important Goldenseal
data
- If your computer's file tables become corrupted and Goldenseal
gets data from the wrong part of your hard drive
Most damage to Goldenseal files will only affect one
or two records, but damage to a few parts of your company
file can severaly disrupt your use of the file:
- There is an ID index which keeps track of record locations on the
disk. If this is damaged, many records can become
unuseable.
- There is a File Manager which keeps track of the location
of records and empty spaces in the file. If this
is damaged, you will no longer be able to save records.
- The beginning of each Goldenseal file includes some header
information and details about each record class.
Damage here may make the file completely unreadable.
What to do with a Damaged File
Modern hard drives are very reliable and Goldenseal
is very careful about the way it manages record saves,
so file damage is extremely rare. But if you are seeing
many mystery error messages or otherwise think you may have
a damaged file, first follow these steps:
- Immediately Exit/Quit from Goldenseal,
and make a backup copy of your current company file.
- Locate your most recent backup file(s),
and make an extra copy of the backup file(s). HINT--
This is when you will
really appreciate having a good backup system,
or really regret not having a better one!
- Call or email Turtle Creek Support and
let us know what error messages you are getting.
We can advise you on the
seriousness of the problem and help you to salvage
your company data.
- We may ask you to send us
a copy of the damaged file. By seeing the
file, it's possible we can better help you repair
it or salvage data. We'll also do an autopsy
on it so we can better prevent damaged files
in the future.
What you do next depends on the severity of the file damage. File Won't Open
If the file won't open at all, you will need to go
back to your most recent backup copy. Please send
us a copy of the damaged file-- it may help us to
prevent similar damage in the future.
File Gives Error Messages
If the file opens but gives error messages, you may
be able to continue using the same file. Goldenseal
is able to self-repair some types of file damage,
if the problems are not severe.
To check the integrity of your data, choose Security
from the View menu, and choose Verify File from the
submenu. That will check every record, and report
any problems it finds. That will help you to decide
what to do.
Some types of file damage can be fixed by the following
steps:
- Choose Security from the View menu, and choose Compress File from
the submenu.
- Goldenseal will re-save every record, and 'tidy
up' your file.
- Choose Security from the
View menu, and choose Verify File from the submenu.
It will report any damage that still remains.
If many error messages continue despite the
above steps, you will probably need to revert to
your last backup file.
How to Salvage Data
When you go back to a backup copy of your Goldenseal
company file, you'll lose any data that was entered
since that backup. However, if you can open a damaged
file, you can probably salvage most or all of
the recent data, and then import
it into the backup file. To do so, follow these
steps:
- Open the damaged file.
- Choose Export from the
File menu, and choose Entire
Company File from the submenu.
- Where it says Date Range,
choose Custom Range, and type
in a date range that starts at the date
of your backup file and ends today.
- Click OK.
- Choose where to
save
the file (in My Documents or wherever
you like to save
things).
- Goldenseal
will look at every record and export
any items created since
your backup file. The export
will take
a
minute or two to run.
NOTE-- You
may get some error messages when
you do the export, but just
hit OK
to each. You can also hold down
the Control key to skip all error messages.
After
you finish exporting from the damaged file,
you can import the data into your backup
file. To do so, follow these steps:
- Choose Exit or Quit from the File
menu to close the damaged file.
- Open
the copy of your backup file (not
the original
backup!)
- Coose Import from the
File menu, ahd choose
Company
File from
the submenu
- Locate the file exported in
the previous
steps.
- Goldenseal
will bring in the recent
data.
Tidying after the Import When you
export data from a damaged file, Goldenseal will
automatically post data from each new record-- so
accounts payable, accounts receivable, job costing
and other functions will have correct information.
If some records are very badly damaged, Goldenseal
will skip them. It may also bring in some records
with incorrect data, if they were corrupted just
partially.
It's probably a good idea to double-check the data
from the damaged file, and match it to the new imported
file to make sure it matches. The best way to do
that is to make reports so you can easily scan a
large amount of data.
For example, to check material purchase records,
follow these steps:
- Choose Expenses from the Reports menu, and choose Material Purchases
from the submenu.
- Enter Custom Range in the
Date Range popup, and type in
a range from the date of the backup file
to today.
- Click Update.
- You'll see a list of all purchases. Click the Print
button to print it, or click Save As Text
to save it as a text file.
- Choose Exit or Quit from the File menu.
- Open your new file.
- Repeat steps 1 to 3 in the new file.
- Compare the data in the report with the data in
the original file.
To return to file topics, click here.
To see solutions for other errors and problems, click here.
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