Restoring an ESC Database

Great!  You have a backup of your ESC database!  But do you know what to do with it?

It may be necessary to restore that backup you made at some point. This could occur if your server computer crashed, was stolen or if you simply want to change servers. To restore your data you must first have made a backup using ESC.

Complete these steps when you are ready to restore your data.

1. Ask everyone to get out of ESC on all computers.
2. Go to the server computer and close all programs.
3. Click the Windows Start button and navigate to the "Stop ESC Connections Server" (from Start menu or screen, you can begin typing the name and the program should appear) . Click the Stop ESC Connections Server icon. Click Yes if prompted to allow the program to run.
   
   
   
   
4. Look for the blue ESC icon for the ESC Connections Server Administrator in the Windows System Tray (where you can see the time, generally in the lower right-hand corner). If you see it, right click it and select Exit.
   
   
   
   
5. Open ESC and logon to the desired company using the ADMIN account.
6. Verify everyone is out of ESC by going to Help → About → Current Users. The name of the server should only show up in this window once (as shown below). If any other computers are listed here, go to them and make sure ESC is really closed or turn them off while restoring the data. If the server shows up here more than once, reboot the server then start this procedure again from the beginning. Close the help windows after you have confirmed this.
   
   
   
   
7. Locate the backup file you wish to restore and note the name of the file and its location. Backup files created by ESC will always consist of the database name followed by the extension .dat_bak. So a backup of a database named Service would be named Service.dat_bak.
8. Pull-down the File menu and click on Restore Your Data.
   
   
   
   
9. Enter the full path to the directory that contains the backup file. Do not include the name of the backup file in this path.
   
   
   
   
10. Select the backup you want to restore from the list of those available in the file. Pay particular attention to the date the backup was created. You will generally want to restore the most recent backup but this is not always the case.
    
    
    
    
11. Click Next to restore the data.

IMPORTANT! Restoring a backup overwrites any existing data. Any data that has been entered into the system since the date listed on the backup set will be lost if it has not been backed up separately.

If you receive an error saying "Exclusive access could not be obtained because the database is in use," then there is still a program or computer connected with ESC.  Repeat Steps 3 - 6 to ensure that all users and programs are disconnected from the ESC database.