Article #197 USB Backup Trouble Shooting Guide

A company's information is one of the most valuable assets they have. Thanks to using a Solid Route Accounting™ business system, this information is kept orderly and accurate, making it even more valuable. For that reason, creating backups of the Solid Route Accounting™ business system daily and weekly is one of the most critical steps of a company's routine. When kept in a safe place, these backups ensure that should anything happen to the business system, including theft, fire, or flood, the information is kept secure and can be restored to a new system within minutes.

One of the most convenient mediums to backup on is USB flash drives, also known as thumb drives or memory sticks. As a storage medium, they are ideal since there are no mechanical parts; they are safe around magnets, durable, small, and easy to use. That said, though, there are still steps that clients must do to ensure that the backups are actually being updated onto the flash drive correctly, and if they aren't, then why not.

To Ensure a Backup is Working:

After creating a system backup, it's vital to ensure that the backup was correctly copied onto the USB flash drive. To do this:

1. Navigate to [START / Computer] and open the USB flash drive that should be listed here under 'Devices with Removable Storage'.
2. If the backup was created correctly, there will be a backup file called 'GMDAY-X.ZIP' for a daily backup or 'GMFULL-Y.ZIP' for a full backup.
   Where X is the day of the week, and Y is the month of the year.
3. Right-click on this backup file, and select 'Properties' from the right-click menu. Inside 'Properties' under the 'General' tab, the 'Modified' date should be today's date. If so, then the backup was created correctly. If not, then please follow the steps below to get the system backups working correctly again.

If the 'Modified' date has not been updated to today's date after creating a backup, then this system has not been backed up properly. The possible causes for this are either the USB flash drive is out of space, or Solid Route Accounting™ is no longer pointed to the correct letter drive for this flash drive.

USB Flash Drive Out of Space?

Although Solid recommends that companies use one USB flash drive for each workday of the week, some companies still use fewer flash drives to hold all their backups. This can fill up the flash drive to the point that there's no longer enough free space to accommodate a new backup. To verify if the USB flash drive still has enough space:

1. After creating a backup (and discovering that it was not saved to the USB flash drive from the previous section), navigate to the product folder for Solid Route Accounting™, which on most systems is by default [START / Computer / Local Disk (C:) / Si] or simply C:\Si.
2. In this 'Si' folder, find the backup that was created. Daily backups are 'GMDAY-X.ZIP', and full backups are 'GMFULL-Y.ZIP'. Once that backup has been located, a compressed file, right-click on that file and select 'Properties' from the right-click menu. Once again, if this is the correct backup file, the 'Modified' date should be today's date.
   Where X is the day of the week, and Y is the month of the year.
3. Under the 'General' tab of this right-click menu, the 'Size' can also be found, typically given in bytes. Write down this number of bytes as the size of the backup, and then close this properties window and the 'Si' folder.
4. Now we want to see how much free space is available on the USB flash drive. With the USB flash drive plugged into the computer, navigate to [START / Computer], where the USB flash drive should be listed under 'Devices with Removable Storage'.
5. Right-click on this USB flash drive, and select 'Properties' from the right-click menu once again. Under the 'General' tab of 'Properties', the amount of 'Free space' available on this flash drive should be displayed. Compare this number to that of the size of the backup. If this 'Free Space' number is smaller than the backup's size, then there's not enough free space to accommodate the new backup. Either delete some older backups on the USB flash drive to free up space or purchase a new, larger USB flash drive to replace it.

However, if there is enough free space to accommodate this backup then it's most likely that Solid Route Accounting™ is no longer directed toward the correct backup destination.

Is the Backup Pointed to the Right Location?

A minor weakness with Microsoft Windows is that it must re-recognize a USB flash drive when it is plugged into the computer. Although the computer will always recognize the USB flash drive correctly, it may not necessarily assign it to the same letter drive as the last time it was connected. If this is the case, and the letter drive has not been changed in the Solid Route Accounting™ backup procedures to reflect this, then the system will not be able to back up onto the USB flash drive since it's pointed to the wrong letter drive. Thankfully, this is an easy issue to repair by following the steps below for the Solid Route Accounting™ business system being used.

Enterprise Edition Users:

1. When the USB flash drive is plugged into the computer, navigate to [START / Computer] on the PC. The USB flash drive should be listed in the category "Devices with Removable Storage" and it'll be assigned a letter drive, such as '(F:)'.
2. In Solid Business Central™, when creating a backup, the first screen arrived at is the Backup Configuration screen. For backups to a USB flash drive, ensure that:
   1. 'Backup Disk Type' is set to 'Flash drive'.
   2. 'Backup Destination' is set to the USB flash drive's letter designation ('F' from the example in Step 1 above).
3. Use [CTRL+END] to continue with the backup.