.BAK file backup question

[casey]

Sorry if this is a really dumb question but,

Help says to backup a file by copying the .mdb file to the backup media.

What does the .BAK file in my folder do for me? Can I restore a the DB from this file? How does this work?

Thanks.

 

[RV]

The .BAK file does nothing here.
A .BAK file is a backup of a (changed) .BAT file.

If you want to backup your mdb-file, just make a copy of it and store it in a "secure" place.

RV

 

[jacktx]

Archive

Is there anyway to archive just the data files in an mdb, or do you need an add on for that?

 

[rpadams]

split the database

Use the database splitter and store your data as a separate .mdb and then back up only that.

 

[jacktx]

figures

yea, I'm familar with this, but this kind of a crappy way to do it. Access leaves a lot to be desired. There must be an add on you can get that filters just for the dat files and lets you archive those to a selected drive. Anybody know of one?

 

[Autoeng]

The split back end of a db contains very little other than data. You are really not wasting any drive space by backing up the backend.

Autoeng

 

[jacktx]

I know

But what nobody seems to understand is that, I want to archive data for another reason, other than saving drive space.

1. If there is an add on that will do this, its slicker than doing doing the front end back end split.

2. I am using a form with sub-forms and an auto number as the prmary key. With this mdb, the user will want to delete or archive the data so that they can start all over with reports at 0001. They would want to do that at the first of each year.

 

[rpadams]

This is so slick it IS easy

Simply copy over the year's back-end data to another (archive) file, then go in and delete all the existing records and then compact the data part of the database. Bingo--autonumber starts at the beginning and you can always look at prior year's work if you need to.

I once wrote a batch file to accomplish this same thing, but frankly the manual way is so easy I really never bother to use it.