Alternate Hard Disk drive

[mike]

I am using Quicken 2004R3 and Windows Xp Media Home Edition 5.1 SP 2.
This is a new computer. On my old computer I used to backup my Quicken
date to Zip drives. The new computer does not have Zip drives but does
have CD RW and DVD RW capability.

Today I tried to backup the Quicken files to a CD RW. I put the CD RW
into the CD drive and did a 'quick' format of the CD. I then went to
Quicken and ran a backup onto the CD. I got a message from Quicken
saying 'backup completed successfully.' I then went to Windows Explorer
to look at the contents of the CD and it did not contain any data.

I then went to Quicken . Help > Backup. I found the following statement
which I do not understand: " Before you can back up to a CD-R or a
CD-RW you must configure your CD-RW drive to work like an alternate
hard disk drive.

Can anyone shed some light on what this is asking me to do?
How to do it?
What are the ramifications of doing it?

Thanks for any and all help.

 

[Malke]

I am using Quicken 2004R3 and Windows Xp Media Home Edition 5.1 SP 2.
This is a new computer. On my old computer I used to backup my Quicken
date to Zip drives. The new computer does not have Zip drives but does
have CD RW and DVD RW capability.

Today I tried to backup the Quicken files to a CD RW. I put the CD RW
into the CD drive and did a 'quick' format of the CD. I then went to
Quicken and ran a backup onto the CD. I got a message from Quicken
saying 'backup completed successfully.' I then went to Windows
Explorer to look at the contents of the CD and it did not contain any
data.

I then went to Quicken . Help > Backup. I found the following
statement which I do not understand: " Before you can back up to a
CD-R or a CD-RW you must configure your CD-RW drive to work like an
alternate hard disk drive.

Can anyone shed some light on what this is asking me to do?
How to do it?
What are the ramifications of doing it?

The message is saying that you need to use packet-writing software like
InCD or Direct CD. I don't recommend doing this because these backups
should be completely transferrable. If you try to transfer the data to
another computer that doesn't have the same packet-writing software
installed (or doesn't have a UDF reader), the CD-RW you carefully made
will look blank.

It is better to just use a CD-R. Make a folder for your Quicken backups
in My Documents and set that as the default backup location. This way
you can back up your whole My Documents folder at one time, including
the Quicken backup.

Malke

 

[Brad Houser]

I am using Quicken 2004R3 and Windows Xp Media Home Edition 5.1 SP 2.
This is a new computer. On my old computer I used to backup my Quicken
date to Zip drives. The new computer does not have Zip drives but does
have CD RW and DVD RW capability.

Today I tried to backup the Quicken files to a CD RW. I put the CD RW
into the CD drive and did a 'quick' format of the CD. I then went to
Quicken and ran a backup onto the CD. I got a message from Quicken
saying 'backup completed successfully.' I then went to Windows Explorer
to look at the contents of the CD and it did not contain any data.

I then went to Quicken . Help > Backup. I found the following statement
which I do not understand: " Before you can back up to a CD-R or a
CD-RW you must configure your CD-RW drive to work like an alternate
hard disk drive.

Can anyone shed some light on what this is asking me to do?
How to do it?
What are the ramifications of doing it?

Thanks for any and all help.

1. Create the backup files on the hard drive, use a new empty folder to
make sure you get them all.

2. Copy the folder to the CD writer drive.

3. Open the CD drive in Windows explorer. You should see dimmed icons for
eash file. Select "Write these files to CD".

Windows XP has built in CD writing software. You don't need anything
special. If the above doesn't work, maybe you don't really have a CD
burner. You can buy a 512MB USB key chain drive for under $20-30 as an
alternative, assuming you have USB in both systems.

 

[mike]

Thank you for your response. I modified your suggestion a bit and would
like to insure that I am on safe ground.

I made a Quicken Backup folder in My documents on the C drive.
I did a Quicken Backup into this new folder.
I made a new Quicken Backup folder on the CD-RW.
Using Windows Explorer I then copied the backup files from My Documents
to the new folder on the CD-RW. This seemed to work OK.
Because I sometimes must backup Quicken several times a day I prefer to
use a few CD-RWs and keep cycling them by overlaying the data on the
oldest CD-RW.
Am I on solid ground with this method?
Once I am sure I have a working Backup strategy I will then move on to
the Recover process.

 

[Vanguard]

I am using Quicken 2004R3 and Windows Xp Media Home Edition 5.1 SP 2.
This is a new computer. On my old computer I used to backup my Quicken
date to Zip drives. The new computer does not have Zip drives but does
have CD RW and DVD RW capability.

Today I tried to backup the Quicken files to a CD RW. I put the CD RW
into the CD drive and did a 'quick' format of the CD. I then went to
Quicken and ran a backup onto the CD. I got a message from Quicken
saying 'backup completed successfully.' I then went to Windows
Explorer
to look at the contents of the CD and it did not contain any data.

I then went to Quicken . Help > Backup. I found the following
statement
which I do not understand: " Before you can back up to a CD-R or a
CD-RW you must configure your CD-RW drive to work like an alternate
hard disk drive.

It means that Quicken (and many other applications) expect the CD-RW
drive to be using packet writing so the disc looks like a big floppy.
You need to use CD-RW media, not CD-R. The IMAPI service in Windows XP
is NOT packet writing software. You will need to get InCD or DirectCD
which are installable file systems that add UDF read/write support to
CD-RW drives (for packet writing). Those programs come from Roxio and
Nero and are bundled with their CD burning software. I haven't bothered
to check if there are freebie UDF writers around (there are freebie UDF
*readers* but that won't let you write to the disc). Either Quicken
figures its users are too stupid to understand the details (by providing
any) in their help or they really don't know what it is required.

I've never cared for the installable UDF drivers provided by InCD and
DirectCD since they reduce reliability of every host on which they have
been installed (i.e., I will get more blue screen crashes on them and
which are specifically tied to these utilities). You might simply
designate a backup folder on the hard drive and then copy that folder to
the CD-R[W] disc using IMAPI (drag using Explorer) or CD burning
software.

 

[Paul_B]

Because I sometimes must backup Quicken several times a day I prefer to
use a few CD-RWs and keep cycling them by overlaying the data on the
oldest CD-RW.
Am I on solid ground with this method?

If you backup that often I would suggest getting a scheduled
backup utility. Cobian Backup is free and excellent. For safety's
sake you could add a second hard drive, either in box or on the
network, to the backup regimen. This set up would work
independently of Quicken's own backup faculty.

p.

 

[R. McCarty]

Quicken also has a habit/tendency to create lots of backup
copies of the .Qdf. Usually on systems that I configure for
Quicken users I create a direct link to their .Qdf and open
the data file directly. I've seen systems w/ hundreds if not a
few thousand Quicken backups on it. I've had customers
who open/use the wrong data file or from one of the backup
locations and it's a job to sort out all the Quicken data files
on the PC. Directly linking (Shortcut) to the master .Qdf can
ensure the user is always using the same data store.

 

[Jonny]

I am using Quicken 2004R3 and Windows Xp Media Home Edition 5.1 SP 2.
This is a new computer. On my old computer I used to backup my Quicken
date to Zip drives. The new computer does not have Zip drives but does
have CD RW and DVD RW capability.

Today I tried to backup the Quicken files to a CD RW. I put the CD RW
into the CD drive and did a 'quick' format of the CD. I then went to
Quicken and ran a backup onto the CD. I got a message from Quicken
saying 'backup completed successfully.' I then went to Windows Explorer
to look at the contents of the CD and it did not contain any data.

I then went to Quicken . Help > Backup. I found the following statement
which I do not understand: " Before you can back up to a CD-R or a
CD-RW you must configure your CD-RW drive to work like an alternate
hard disk drive.

Can anyone shed some light on what this is asking me to do?
How to do it?
What are the ramifications of doing it?

Thanks for any and all help.

The Cdrw has to be under a UDF filesystem monitoring program like INCD for
the backup to work directly within the Quicken program. This is not
suggested in my opinion for a single and only backup system for your
financial files.

Some alternatives as well are a separate hard drive, an external hard drive,
a thumb drive, networked connected hard drive. Multiple targets are best
for critical personal file backups.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thank you for your response. I modified your suggestion a bit and
would like to insure that I am on safe ground.

I made a Quicken Backup folder in My documents on the C drive.
I did a Quicken Backup into this new folder.
I made a new Quicken Backup folder on the CD-RW.
Using Windows Explorer I then copied the backup files from My
Documents to the new folder on the CD-RW. This seemed to work OK.
Because I sometimes must backup Quicken several times a day I prefer
to use a few CD-RWs and keep cycling them by overlaying the data on
the oldest CD-RW.
Am I on solid ground with this method?

My personal view is that CDRWs are much less reliable than CDRs, and I
always use CDRs instead. CDRs are very cheap these days; you can often buy
them for pennies, and sometimes they are even free after rebate.

Another approach, and the one I use for backing up my Quicken data, is to
back up to USB thumb drives.