I have Family Origins 8.0 with an upgrade to 9.0 on my desktop. I need to get the F.O. program for 9.0 to install to my laptop with floppies instead of a cd which I used to install to my desktop. Is this possible? In the past, one had an option. Another question, is there a way to take one family line out of F.O. 9.0 database without taking all the lines (should one want to give a line to someone)? If not on 9.0, how about F.O. 10? Thanks. I hope this makes sense. georgia draves robinhd@shawneelink.net

In all of the discussion about backups, I have not noticed the method I use. I established a free email account at YAHOO.com (6 MB free, 10 MB for $10/yr, 25 MB for $20/yr, 50 MB for $30/yr, 100 MB fro $50/yr). Every time I make a backup, I verify it by restoring in it my "FO Test" folder and then send a copy to this email account. That way, I always have an off site copy of my FO backup. When I exceed the 6 MB limit, I just delete the oldest backup. I do not send any photos to YAHOO, I keep the backups of my photos on CDs. If I were to send my photos to YAHOO, I would open a second account called Photos and keep them in it. I have had YAHOO email accounts for several years and never lost any data on any of them. Bob

> However if I did not have another computer or > at least a separate hard drive on which to do it I would still never use > Restore to verify one. That's exactly the same as saying that you will never save a Qucken file or an MSWord file to your hard drive because you're afraid that you'll ruin your FOW database. It is perfectly safe to restore a backup to check its integrity so long as you do the restore to a different (new) database. How do I know? Because Bruce says so and I trust him implicitly <g>. > BTW, looking at the backup in WinZip showed no apparent problems. The files > appeared to be normal in filenames, number of files and size. 'Nuff said. If you don't know for sure that your backup will restore then you don't really have any assurance that your data is protected. If you don't have a known good (restored) backup stored OFF-site. . .ditto. You've heard it a thousand times, rotate at least three disks for backups. Verify your backups. Keep a reasonably recent, verified backup off-site. Share (swap) your database(s) with other family members often - you verify theirs and they verify yours. Attach your known good backup to an email and send it to yourself at work. How about your documents? If the filing cabinet(s) go up in flames with the house, what's the damage? Every day you hear new horror stories. Your hard drive will crash - it's not a matter of IF but of WHEN. Are you protected? Good Hunting! -- Paul aka Graveseeker on Geocaching.com where YOU are the search engine.

In recent weeks there has been a lot of talk of using PKZip or WINzip for saving files. I have been using PKZip since the late 80's. I have hundreds of files and folders that have been compressed over the years. Last summer I was hit by a virus which destroyed my computer. Recently I was searching for some of my compressed histories and found that I could not open any of them. I checked about 30 disks, each with many files. Not one of them would open. These are all histories needed for my database. I have the data filed on both types of 3.5 disks as well as ZIP100 disks. All are the same. I even tried to open them on two other computers. Still the same. I can't remember the answer I received each time, but the indication was that it "could not open" the file. After seeing all the others with problems on Zipping files, I am begining to wonder if there isn't something wrong with the newer computers. Most were compressed using Win3.1 and Win95. I am now using Win98 and 2000. Anyone have any ideas. I now backup my FO by coping the files to another folder (backup) using the date as the file name. Yes, it does take up a lot of extra space, but at least I have no problems. Someone mentioned last month that they use a "Memory Stick" for moving files from one computer to another. I tried that and it works great. I no longer use the slow ZIP100 for moving my database as the Memory Stick works so much easier. I even tested out using the Stick for working with the files and that works great also, but I am not sure how safe it is, so I just copy the files to the second computer and work on them from there. I an still leary of compressing my backup. It is just as easy to copy the file to a different location as a backup. DonWright@footprints.org Webmaster of http://footprints.org "All Incoming and Outgoing Mail is Scanned with Norton Anti-Virus"

Jim Wise <jwise@wvadventures.net> wrote: >I have seen the mention of "verified backups" on this list several times >and have always ignored the suggestion because the only way I know to >verify a backup is to restore it. This is something I would NEVER do to my >main database. Is there some other way to verify a backup? The most obvious way to test a backup is to restore it. But you very definitely do not want to restore a questionable backup on top of your main database. But as Alfred mentioned, you do not need another computer ... you merely restore it to a different folder than the one your real database is in. As soon as you see the database restored in the other folder properly, and you open it and find it good, you can delete it. Always make the effort to be reasonably sure you have a good backup. But there is a more efficient way to test a backup without all that file creating and deleting. Both WinZip and PKzip will test a zipfile for integrity ... they go through the process of unzipping the backup but without actually extracting any of the files and will tell you if there are any errors. PKzip has an extremely handy function ... it puts the test item in the windows right click menu. So, if you have PKzip for windows installed on your computer and you have just made a backup of your database then go ahead and click on the restore item and find your new backup in the file finder dialog ... but instead of restoring it, right click on it instead. In the sub menu that pops up you will see the PKzip test item ... click on it and PKzip will test your backup zipfile right there on the spot ... you don't even have to leave FO to test a backup that way. Wayne League

When you "Restore" a backup, it will have the same database name as the database that it was created from. When you choose to restore, if there is a database in that folder with the same name, the original for instance, you will get a warning and be questioned if you want to overwrite the existing database. To verify a backup, restore it to a different directory/folder than the original resides in. You could create a folder just for this purpose and, once the backup checks out, delete the database and have an empty folder until next time. As long as it is in a different folder it will not overwrite the original, it does not have to be on a different hard drive. BE CAREFUL DELETING DATABASES IF YOU HAVE TWO OR MORE OPENED AT ONCE! I have selected 'delete database' and confirmed that is what I wanted to do, then, too late, realized that I had the wrong one left. Sometimes the problem with floppies is the drives being out of alignment just a bit, "one to the left and one to the right," so that they cannot quite understand each other. Alfred D. Eller Help for Windows beginners: http://freepages.computers.rootsweb.com/~adelr/index.htm ========================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Wise" <jwise@wvadventures.net> To: <FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 10:20 AM Subject: [FO] Re: verified backups > --=======67D53936======= > Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-67257BA9; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > At 10:00 PM 1/6/2003 -0700, you wrote: > >OTOH, it's a shame that we preach and preach about multiple, rotating, > >verified backups > > I have seen the mention of "verified backups" on this list several times > and have always ignored the suggestion because the only way I know to > verify a backup is to restore it. This is something I would NEVER do to my > main database. Is there some other way to verify a backup? > > The reason I won't restore to my main database to verify is that I would be > virtually guaranteeing that the first (and every) bad backup I make will > probably wipe out my database. Just a few minutes ago I made a backup on > floppies and tried to verify it on another computer. It was a bad backup > and it corrupted my database such that FO10 would only crash each time I > tried to run it. I will discuss that problem in my next email in order to > keep the issues separate. > > This discovery of a bad backup and subsequent crash points out the obvious > need for verifying backups. However if I did not have another computer or > at least a separate hard drive on which to do it I would still never use > Restore to verify one. > > BTW, looking at the backup in WinZip showed no apparent problems. The files > appeared to be normal in filenames, number of files and size. > > Jim Wise >

--=======3D535334======= Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-67257BA9; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In attempting to verify a disk-spanned backup this morning on my laptop (safely away from the desktop "main" database where it was made) I corrupted my database and crashed FO 10. To recover from this I unzipped an old backup from the laptop hard drive over the now-corrupted database files. That took care of the crashing FO. Then I went to my last disk-spanned backup. It was also bad. (The third set back was OK but I checked no further.) Thinking that my rotating sets of floppies have been rotated and used beyond their useful life I got a new pair of disks to create another backup. It also turned out to be bad. The files on these disks appear to be normal whether viewed with Explorer, WinZip or DOS commands. On my desktop computer I created another backup but this time on a Zip disk with which I successfully updated the database on the laptop. Using one of the "suspect" floppies from my rotating set I backed up a much smaller database and restored it to the laptop with no problem. Therefore, to me at least, it seems to be a disk-spanning problem. Whether the problem is in creating it on the desktop or in reading it on the laptop I don't know. I tried to extract the files using WinZip to narrow it down further but WinZip requires an Add-on to extract disk-spanned files. At this point the problem is only a minor inconvenience since I plan to switch to RM in a couple weeks (days?) so I probably won't try reinstalling FO 10 but it could conceivably be a problem that would show up with RM also. Or maybe someone can point out something I am overlooking. --=======3D535334=======--

--=======67D53936======= Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-67257BA9; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit At 10:00 PM 1/6/2003 -0700, you wrote: >OTOH, it's a shame that we preach and preach about multiple, rotating, >verified backups I have seen the mention of "verified backups" on this list several times and have always ignored the suggestion because the only way I know to verify a backup is to restore it. This is something I would NEVER do to my main database. Is there some other way to verify a backup? The reason I won't restore to my main database to verify is that I would be virtually guaranteeing that the first (and every) bad backup I make will probably wipe out my database. Just a few minutes ago I made a backup on floppies and tried to verify it on another computer. It was a bad backup and it corrupted my database such that FO10 would only crash each time I tried to run it. I will discuss that problem in my next email in order to keep the issues separate. This discovery of a bad backup and subsequent crash points out the obvious need for verifying backups. However if I did not have another computer or at least a separate hard drive on which to do it I would still never use Restore to verify one. BTW, looking at the backup in WinZip showed no apparent problems. The files appeared to be normal in filenames, number of files and size. Jim Wise --=======67D53936=======--

Hello Marge, OK. The bad sectors may be the problem but I'd still try to unzip one of those files into a temporary directory on C: using PKZIP or WinZip. If this works - that is, you get the 35 files that FO uses - then I'd copy them over to your FO directory. Now, you should be able to click on "Open Database" and open it. Probably the reason Margaret Scheffler only got 2kb each is because AOL can't send attachments of the size you tried to send her. One other thought. In the beginning, you said the computer store had to re-format the hard disk on your computer. This means they had to re- install Windows 95. Did they use your CD or one of their own? Did they set it up exactly the way it was before with all the same settings, preferences, etc. Does FO work okay for other databases? Charles Gohlke

On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Marge Howes wrote: > (one shows 546 KB, and the other 330 KB) On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Margaret Scheffler wrote: > Clicking on properties, each file is 2 kb. Marge, Maybe this has been covered in private correspondence but I don't understand the above discrepancies in file size. If you realy have all those bytes on your diskette, there is still hope. But if you only have 2 kb in each file, then I think you're out of luck. If I had that diskette, the first thing I'd do is pop it in A: and find out what's on it. You can do this from Explorer but, being an old timer, I'd exit to DOS and use the DIR A: command. Then I'd use the CHKDSK A: command. CHKDSK will tell you the total number of bytes on the disk, the number in use, hidden files, bad sectors, etc. I wouldn't run SCANDISK until all other possibilities have been exhausted. Jerry Bryan has some good suggestion under "Backup Help". Charles Gohlke

Hello, I have FO 8 on my old computer (Win 95) to use as another backup. In there is a database "Ereg" with a sub folder "Wininet". They seem empty, but what in the world are they? Can I delete them? Thank you so much. Maxine

Hi Charles, This morning, using explorer, the disk shows 547KB in one file and 331KB in the other. I ran scan disk on the floppy last night. The results were: "Scan disk found errors on this drive but did not fix all of them" 1,457,664 bytes total disk space 87,552 bytes in bad sectors 0 bytes in 0 folders 0 bytes in hidden files 898,560 bytes in 2 user files 741,552 bytes available on disk 512 bytes in each allocation unit 2,847 total allocation units on disk 921 available allocation units I'll see if my husband will help me try Jerry's suggestions after he gets home from work. Again, Thank you to everyone who is trying so hard to help me. Marge Howes

If the gedcom has been uploaded to Rootsweb's WorldCom database, you can retrieve a copy of your own gedcom from there. I had to use that source at one time myself. Of course it's value would depend on how up-to-date your last upload is. Just another thought that may help Good Luck Hope

> It seems > strange, however, that there are named files that are empty. > If one had backed up accidentally to the hard disk, I would > think that you should have no named files on the floppy. FOW SHOULD tell you if the backup operation failed and should NOT leave empty named files on the disk. That's something that Bruce can and should fix. OTOH, it's a shame that we preach and preach about multiple, rotating, verified backups and keeping copies offsite for protection against fire, etc. and people continue to rely on a single floppy disk in their desk drawer. Sooner or later, everybody get the same painful lesson - it sure is a tough way to learn how to back up properly. Good Hunting! -- Paul aka Graveseeker on Geocaching.com where YOU are the search engine.

>I did check to make sure that the files were on the floppy, but don't >know how to check to see if they are good. I know just enough about >this to be dangerous. I guess there is some good from any bad >situation if we learn from it! >I have attached both zip files from my floppy to an e-mail and have >sent them to Margaret, who is going to try to restore them to an old >FO 6.0 that she has. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I definitely would not give up without a fight. For example: 1. Try to copy the floppy on another computer. Sometimes one floppy drive will read a diskette when another will not. 2. Test the zip file with WINZIP or equivalent. For example, if the bad file is one of the index files (CDX extension), then restore everything but the index files. FO can rebuild them for you. 3. Using WINZIP or equivalent, try restoring one file at a time time. I have had experiences where a restore operation would restore all but one or two files. Doing it again would restore all but one or two files, but it might be a different one or two than the first time. If all but one or two files are good, be persistent and restore just that one or two over and over again until they work. 4. Take your backup floppy out, put a different one in, then put the backup floppy in again, to give the read/write heads a chance to realign slightly (especially useful in combination with #3, for example in the event that your first try restores all the files but one). 5. Turn your computer off overnight, try again first thing in the morning (when floppy drive is still cool -- temperature changes can mess up read/write head alignment). This is also especially useful if you can restore all but one or two files. Try the other one or two again the next morning. 6. Etc. that I haven't thought of yet. Good luck. Jerry Bryan _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

If properties shows a size of 2 KB then something went to the floppy drive. It might however be corrupted. I presume that you are trying to recover with the same version that was backed up? FO10 will not read a FO6 backup. If it is corrupted then back to the keyboard. I daily backup my files to a CD. I backup to a second cd when I have made a lot of changes for my bank deposit box. I backup to my second drive periodically and backup to my zip drive periodically. That doesn't mean that I couldn't have a hard drive failure and couldn't read my backups but I am cutting the odds. Several files that I do everything possible to not lose are my Quicken bank accounts, and my Genealogy files. And, Oh my thousands of scanned photos, photos from my digital camera and photos sent to me from others. I think if I lost any one of those files I couldn't ever stop crying. Over the many years that I have had computers, I have had hard disk failures, changes of computers that I couldn't transfer some of the files etc. Several times I have lost all my e-mail folders of various people that have e-mailed me and it broke my heart. E-mail folders have no sure way of backing up because no provisions are made a backup. I always tried to back them up but never could recover them. Anyway it is bedtime so lots of luck to you and I hope you can recover them. Art Pollock Savannah, Georgia ----- Original Message ----- From: "MScheffler" <mscheffl@twcny.rr.com> To: <FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2003 11:06 PM Subject: [FO] Unrestorable backup files > Hi Marge and others interested, > > Marge emailed me her FOWIN6 backup files so that I could > try restoring them on another computer. > > I installed FOWIN6 and tried to restore the two > databases on a Windows 98 computer, and got the Dynazip > error message. I have Winzip so then tried using it to > unzip the files to a directory C:\FO6\data. Unfortunately > for both files I got the message that the zip file is empty. > > I then tried to restore the FO6 presumably zip files to > FO10 on an XP computer and received the message the file did > not contain a Family Origins backup. > > I could be mistaken, but I interpret this to mean the > file was never backed up to the disk. It could be that the > backup went up to the hard drive instead of the floppy or > perhaps more likely the problem was with the floppy or > perhaps some other problem with the computer. It seems > strange, however, that there are named files that are empty. > If one had backed up accidentally to the hard disk, I would > think that you should have no named files on the floppy. > Clicking on properties, each file is 2 kb. > > Does anyone else have a suggestion for Marge? > > Margaret Scheffler > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <MAHowes678130736@aol.com> > > > > ==== FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS Mailing List ==== > The "Family Origins® Wish List" http://formalsoft.com/wishlist.htm > ??? FAQ ??? -- http://www.graabek.com/fow/fofaq.html >

Hi Marge and others interested, Marge emailed me her FOWIN6 backup files so that I could try restoring them on another computer. I installed FOWIN6 and tried to restore the two databases on a Windows 98 computer, and got the Dynazip error message. I have Winzip so then tried using it to unzip the files to a directory C:\FO6\data. Unfortunately for both files I got the message that the zip file is empty. I then tried to restore the FO6 presumably zip files to FO10 on an XP computer and received the message the file did not contain a Family Origins backup. I could be mistaken, but I interpret this to mean the file was never backed up to the disk. It could be that the backup went up to the hard drive instead of the floppy or perhaps more likely the problem was with the floppy or perhaps some other problem with the computer. It seems strange, however, that there are named files that are empty. If one had backed up accidentally to the hard disk, I would think that you should have no named files on the floppy. Clicking on properties, each file is 2 kb. Does anyone else have a suggestion for Marge? Margaret Scheffler ----- Original Message ----- From: <MAHowes678130736@aol.com>

Thank you to everyone that sent a reply to my call for help. To answer a few of your questions. We had Winzip before the computer problems and have re-installed it after getting the computer back. I forgot to mention that in my first e-mail. I used the backup feature in the FO program to make my backups. I was backing up frequently, but was using the same floppy and over writing the previous backup each time. I won't do that again! I did check to make sure that the files were on the floppy, but don't know how to check to see if they are good. I know just enough about this to be dangerous. I guess there is some good from any bad situation if we learn from it! I have attached both zip files from my floppy to an e-mail and have sent them to Margaret, who is going to try to restore them to an old FO 6.0 that she has. I am keeping my fingers crossed. My husband will try Wayne's good suggestions and if none of those things work, I guess it's back to the keyboard for me! Thank you all again. I apprecieate your help. Marge Howes

If Margaret, David, and Wayne were unable to help. How about Alfred or Bruce. If they can't help you, Enjoy upgrading to Roots Magic and Start Typing. Good luck. Did the scan disk of your floppies work Marge??? I'll be Praying!!!! HAVE A GREAT DAY!!! Jim Mahan --- http://james.mahan.tripod.com --- http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=jrmahan --- http://wc.rootsweb.com/~jrmahan --- http://mahanscadsolutions.com --- "WE WILL NOT WAIVER, WE WILL NOT TIRE, WE WILL NOT FALTER; --- AND WE WILL NOT FAIL. PEACE AND FREEDOM WILL PREVAIL." --- --- President GEORGE W. BUSH --- "ALL INCOMING AND OUTGOING E-MAIL IS SCANNED WITH NORTON ANTI-VIRUS" ----- Original Message ----- From: "MScheffler" <mscheffl@twcny.rr.com> To: <FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2003 8:06 PM Subject: [FO] Unrestorable backup files > Hi Marge and others interested, > > Marge emailed me her FOWIN6 backup files so that I could > try restoring them on another computer. > > I installed FOWIN6 and tried to restore the two > databases on a Windows 98 computer, and got the Dynazip > error message. I have Winzip so then tried using it to > unzip the files to a directory C:\FO6\data. Unfortunately > for both files I got the message that the zip file is empty. > > I then tried to restore the FO6 presumably zip files to > FO10 on an XP computer and received the message the file did > not contain a Family Origins backup. > > I could be mistaken, but I interpret this to mean the > file was never backed up to the disk. It could be that the > backup went up to the hard drive instead of the floppy or > perhaps more likely the problem was with the floppy or > perhaps some other problem with the computer. It seems > strange, however, that there are named files that are empty. > If one had backed up accidentally to the hard disk, I would > think that you should have no named files on the floppy. > Clicking on properties, each file is 2 kb. > > Does anyone else have a suggestion for Marge? > > Margaret Scheffler > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <MAHowes678130736@aol.com> > > > > ==== FAMILY-ORIGINS-USERS Mailing List ==== > The "Family Origins® Wish List" http://formalsoft.com/wishlist.htm > ??? FAQ ??? -- http://www.graabek.com/fow/fofaq.html > >

MAHowes678130736@aol.com wrote: > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He has been able to re-install some earlier back-ups but >not the last ones. They are zip files and when the floppy is inserted in the >tower it shows that both of the files are there, (one shows 546 KB, and the >other 330 KB) but we have been unable to restore them into the program. > . . . . . . . . . . . . It sounds like your floppy may have gone bad ... or maybe there was an error when the backup was made. I don't suppose you tested the backup when you first made it to see if it was good? FO backup files are ordinary zip files and can be restored using WinZip, PKzip, or equivalent. I believe FO6 had 29 files in each database (FO10 has 35). You could open the backups with Winzip and see if the right number of files are there. Also, Winzip will test the zipfile for integrity, and for minor problems it may be able to fix it. If you floppy has gone bad then there is a chance that the MicroSoft Scandisk program might be able to fix it. If it is bad and scandisk can't fix it then things begin to look pretty bad at that point ..... Wayne League