a good disaster recovery plan for my database (1 Viewer)

Hi
this one is a puzzle

I need to come up with a good backup scheme for the database that will make sure that they can restore it if needed and not lose any of their work

I have tried many different solutions, and they've always managed to break it in a new, more sophisticated way

Right now I have a Windows 2000 Backup running every night automatically, but the last issue was that somehow the database got deleted and it obviously didn't get backed up for 2 days before they called me

when I looked, they were using some db14.mdb that was in the same folder with 13 other mdb's with likely names
How that happened - I don't know, but probably they got a box saying that the database is corrupted, and they chose db14 from the list of database, thus wiping out the real database

In any case, I couldn't use it to export tables into the real database, because one user was using db14, and the other db13 and so on
so I just restored last known good database from my backups, but that meant losing 2 days worth of work


Does anyone have a good solution for backing up and restoring database, where I can backup tables every half an hour and keep a backup of a week's work?

Or maybe a different solution?

well, anyone?
too long?

I need a good backup scheme for the Access database

People that think they have the best backup thought up, please share

Rather than having nightly back-ups, why not just have incremental back-ups during the day after someone has opened and used the database. These incremental back-ups can then be backed up to a single back-up database instead of having a load of back-up databases where the confusion may have started in the first place.

By the way, how are you running the nightly back-ups at the moment?

i don't want to back it up into one
let's say that during the day they mess it up, and then the previous good back up will be replaced by a messed up back up

I want to keep at least a week worth of back ups, because it has happened that I had to restore database from 3-4 days before


I'm running the NT backup on Widows 2000 Server
Just the database, append to the media option
and regularly I delete the file when it gets too large (but that's once a year)


But I like your idea about running the backup after someone opens the database

How do I tell it to do that?
In other words, how will the backup know that the database has been opened and that it has to back it up?

The procedure for the backup is quite long so I've attached a text document with the code.

Basically how it works is as follows:

1) I have a table with six fields-

LastBackUp - contains the date when the database was last backed up.

LastUpdate - contains the date when the database was last updated. I have a separate procedure that is called whenever a record is added/edited/deleted that updates this field.

MainDataName - contains the name of the main database.

BackupName - contains name of the backup database.

MainDataPath - contains path to the main database.

BackUpPath - contains path to the backup database.

2) When the "Exit Database" button is clicked, the procedure Form_Close (code in attached document) is called.

3) The procedure checks to see if anything has changed since the last backup date. If something has changed the MainDataName, BackupName, MainDataPath & BackUpPath are retrieved to carry out the backup.

4) A Progress Meter is set-up to show the progress of the backup.

5) The tables in the Main Database are then exported to the Backup Database.

6) If the backup completes the date in the LastBackUp field is updated.

7) Finally the forms are closed and the application closed. There's also some error handling for various situations.

thank you very much

I'll study this tonight and will get back to you with questions and comments))))))))))))))))