Backup and recovery

[Alaric]

I do not use Gnucash for backups.  I back up my home directory which 
contains all data files including emails using a backup system based on 
rsync.  I have tried recovery from the backup on an external hard drive, 
from cds and from an old hard disk still installed in the computer.  If 
they work I have an empty file.  Mostly they return an error message 
that there is no suitable backend.  That is a Gnucash error message.

I don't follow the comment about the filename.  When I set up the 
account I saved it with a filename like AWW15.  It has no suffix because 
that is the way Gnucash saved it.  My file manager records it as an 
archive file and the 'Properties' menu shows it as a gzip file.

	Because of my display problem on Linux I have installed a number of 
different distros and each time have recovered the accounts without any 
problems.  This is the first time there has been trouble.

Alaric

On 20/12/15 02:59, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> On 12/19/2015 08:37 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
>> On 12/18/2015 9:16 PM, Jean-David Beyer wrote:
>
>>>
>>> I do a full backup of almost my entire system every night to an external
>>> USB-3 hard drive. I do a full backup of almost my entire system every
>>> week onto magnetic tape that I keep in another room from where my
>>> computer is. I do a full backup of almost my entire system every week
>>> onto magnetic tape that I keep in my safe deposit box at my bank.
>
>> THIS is an example of doing backup (although using obsolescent
>> technology, since a modern external hard drive the size of one computer
>> tape cartridge holds FAR more data and could rotate one to the other
>> room, bank vault, etc. ---- I keep a second copy in a fire box inside a
>> dead fridge in an outbuilding.).
>
> You are right that magnetic tape technology is obsolete, although the
> tapes I use are VXA tapes originally produced by Ecrix. They are
> extremely reliable, and I can fit many months of these tapes in my safe
> deposit box, whereas I can put only a very few WD-Passport drives in
> there. I like to keep a year's worth there (12 cassettes take up much
> less space than 12 Passports). OTOH, when these tape drives quit, that
> is over as no one makes tape drives like these anymore. That is why I am
> using the Passports for the shorter term (daily) backups.
>>
>> You have LOTS of user data on your computer system besides gnucash data.
>> Rather silly to have each application responsible for backing up the
>> data with which it is associated.
>
> Absolutely! By Murphy's law, each application would use a different
> backup strategy, different storage formula, etc., so that restoring
> would be completely unmanageable.
>
>> You wouldn't expect your word
>> processor to be doing the backups for the documents it created, would you?
>>
>> The backups made by gnucash are really intended for use with problems a
>> short time back (since the last full data backup). If you are not doing
>> regular backups then sooner or later you will lose your data. It's not
>> if computers fail but when. If you do not have a "tech support" to do
>> your data backups and restores then you have to learn how to do it
>> yourself. Part of successfully using a computer.
>
> Amen!
>>
>> Michael
>
>
>