Win OS reinstall looses Program files including logs - GCM file found

[Mary Ann Wallace]

For others on the list, I am copying below the results of a closer look 
of my files by John.  To summarize, the files I thought I recovered were 
not the necessary files.  So, I shall accept that and re-enter my data.

Thank you again, John, for your time and comments.

Mary Ann

On 2/5/2015 11:16 PM, John Ralls wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2015, at 4:48 PM, Mary Ann Wallace <wallace at naples.net> wrote:
>
> [edited for brevity....]
>
> I remain a little confused how Gnucash knows what is the latest file to use.  In a program running correctly, does it choose the last dated file to use?  Or is it using gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash? What do we want it to be using normally?
>
> Thank you again for being willing to look at the account.  I am attaching a the last files from 12/27/14.
>
> Sincerely,
> Mary Ann
> Mary Ann,
>
> The gnucash file is, unfortunately, not really a gnucash file. If you'd like I can explain the details, but be warned that they're pretty geeky. Suffice to say that the actual contents were overwritten with other stuff.
>
> The log file is at least the beginning of a gnucash log, but it contains only the header line listing the names of the data
> columns. There's no data in it.
>
> Derek explained the save process to someone else on the list a couple of days ago, but I'll repeat it for you.
> 1. Write out the current state to a new file, gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash.tmp-XXXXXX (the XXXXXX is random characters).
> 2. Rename the existing gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash to gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash.yyyymmddhhmmss.gnucash (yyyy = year, etc.).
> 3. Rename gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash.tmp-XXXXXX to gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash.
>
> GnuCash saves the full path to gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash -- in the case of your removable drive perhaps E:\gnuxmlaccounts.gnucash -- and if that was the file in use when it last shut down that's what it will try to open when it's started back up. If it's the next-to-last, that's what will be stored in the most-recently-used list and what will appear second without the path part in the list in the File menu.
>
> Unless you want to try TestDisk again with a filter to make it easier to find more recent files, I can only offer advice for the future to avoid problems again:
>
> The most important is to make regular, routine backups to another storage device. A thumb drive is fine, just get one of the many automatic backup programs available and have it do it. It's a good idea to have an offsite backup as well to keep your important data safe in the event of a disaster like a fire. I use Google Drive, but there are a lot of services available, many for free if you have a small amount of data. Scan important documents and treasured photos and put those on the service as well.
>
> If you have another disk failure, don't restore onto the existing disk, no matter what the "technician" tells you. Disks are cheap. Buy a new disk and restore to that. Install the old disk as a data disk and see what you can recover from it. Have it restore to the new disk or to an external one, don't write anything to the old disk until you're sure that there isn't anything useful still on it.
>
> Consider turning off file compression in GnuCash's Preferences (Edit>Preferences, General tab, under Files). Although compressed files are much smaller, GnuCash's are generally only a few megabytes even when you have several years of data. Text files are easier to recover than compressed files.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>