Testing Your Backup System

Last reviewed: 06/24/2011
Article ID: R10456

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

It is important to have a good backup of your data. To ensure that the data from your backup routine is good, you should periodically test your backup system. We recommend that you schedule and perform the testing of your backup procedure periodically throughout the year.

MORE INFORMATION

There are a variety of ways to test your backup system to make sure it is working correctly. Most backup software will create a log recording the start/stop times, files backed up, and errors (if any) that occurred during the backup process. Regularly reviewing these logs will indicate whether the backup routine is working correctly. When reviewing these logs, make sure there are no errors. Also, look at the stop and start time to determine whether the process ran an appropriate length of time. A short backup time may indicate that files or directories are being unintentionally skipped.

Using the Compare option in your backup software will also help ensure that your backup system is working properly. After the backup has been created, the Compare option will compare the files from the backup to the files on the hard drive to make sure that they are exactly the same.

Note: When files are restored from a CD, they are restored as read-only.

TEST BY RESTORING

One of the best ways to test your backup system is to restore a file or an entire directory from the most current backup. Here are two ways of testing your files using the restore process:

Restoring a single file:

  1. Choose a non-critical file on your system that has not changed in a few days. The Help files are good candidates for this test (i.e., TBMAIN.CHM, CMMAIN.CHM, etc. or TBMAIN.HLP, CMMAIN.HLP, etc. in Version 14 and below).
  2. Make a temporary backup of the file by copying the file to a different directory or to a different drive on your network.
  3. Delete the file from the original location.
  4. Restore the file from the most recent backup. CAUTION: Restore only the file that was deleted and not the entire directory.
  5. Using the FC command, compare the restored file with the file that was backed up in step 2.
  6. If the file is successfully compared with no errors, you have a good backup. If it does not compare correctly, you may need to re-evaluate your backup system.

Restoring an entire directory:

  1. Choose an entire directory, such as your Tabs3 or PracticeMaster working directory.
  2. You will need to have a current backup of the directory. It is crucial that no changes have been made to the directory since the backup was made. For example, if the backup was made after hours, you may want to perform this test first thing in the morning before any changes are made to the directory.
  3. From the most current backup, restore the directory to a local drive or a separate drive on your network. Make sure you are not restoring to where your current working directory is located. This will ensure that you do not overwrite your current data.
  4. Using the FC command, compare the files in the restored directory with the files in the current working directory.
  5. If the files are successfully compared with no errors, you have a good backup. If they do not restore correctly, you may need to re-evaluate your backup system.

Comparing Restored Files using the FC Command

The FC command (File Compare) is a utility program that compares the contents of two files and displays the differences between them. For our purposes, we will use the FC command to test and verify that there are no differences between the files being compared. If there are errors, the error information shown is typically of no use.

The FC program must be run from a Command prompt. The program is part of the system files and is automatically installed with Windows. The FC.EXE file is typically located in the Windows\System32 directory.

When using the FC command to compare restored files, the files should be compared in binary mode. This compares the two files byte by byte and will report any mismatch that is found between the two files. The "/b" switch is used to compare files in binary mode.

To compare restored data using the FC command:

  1. Open a Command prompt using one of the following steps:

  2. Enter the following command. Make sure you replace each file specification with the full drive, path and file name. It doesn't matter which location is listed first:
            FC  /B  <filespec1> <filespec2>
    For example, if you were comparing the TBMAIN.CHM file, you might enter:
            FC  /B  C:\TABS3\TBMAIN.CHM C:\TEMP\TBMAIN.CHM
    As another example, if you were comparing an entire directory, you might enter:
            FC  /B  F:\TABS3\*.* C:\TABS3TEMP\*.*

  3. If the files are identical, FC will display the following message:
            FC: no differences encountered.
    If the files are not identical, error information will be displayed. Any errors reported indicate that there is a problem with the backup. You may want to repeat the restoring and comparing procedures listed in this article but use a different temporary location. You may need to re-evaluate your backup system.

Note: When a directory contains a space, the path must be surrounded by quotes. For example:
        FC  /B  "F:\DB APPS\TABS3\*.*" "C:\TABS3 TEMP\*.*"

References

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