Solid Know How™

A company’s information is one of the most valuable assets they have. Thanks to using a Solid Route Accounting business system, this information is kept orderly and accurate, making it even more valuable still. For that reason, creating backups of the Solid Route Accounting business system on a daily and weekly basis is one of the most important steps of a company’s routine. These backups when kept in a safe place ensure that should anything happen to the business system, including theft, fire, or flood, the information is kept safe, and can then be restored onto a new system within minutes.

One of the most convenient mediums to backup to are USB flash drives, otherwise known as thumb drives, or memory sticks. As a storage medium, they’re ideal since there’re no mechanical parts, they’re safe around magnets, and they’re durable, small, and easy to use. That said though, there are still steps that clients must do to ensure that the backups are actually being updated onto the flash drive correctly, and if they aren’t, then why not.

To Ensure a Backup is Working:

After a system backup is created, it’s important to ensure that the backup was copied properly onto the USB flash drive. To do this:

1. Navigate to [START / Computer] and open the USB flash drive that should be listed here under ‘Devices with Removable Storage’.
   
   
2. If the backup was created correctly, there should be a backup file here called ‘GMDAY.ZIP’ for a daily backup, or ‘GMFULL.ZIP’ for a full backup.
   
   
3. Right-click on this backup file and from the right-click menu select ‘Properties’. Inside ‘Properties’ under the ‘General’ tab, the ‘Modified’ date should be today’s date. If so, then the backup was created correctly. If not, then please follow the steps below to get the system backups working properly again.

If the ‘Modified’ date has not been updated to today’s date after creating a backup, then this system has not been backed up properly. The possible causes for this are either the USB flash drive is out of space, or Solid Route Accounting is no longer pointed to the correct letter drive for this flash drive.

USB Flash Drive Out of Space?

Although it’s recommended by Solid Innovation that companies use one USB flash drive for each work day of the week, there are still companies that use fewer flash drives to hold all their backups. This can fill up the flash drive to the point that there’s no longer enough free space to accommodate a new backup. To verify if the USB flash drive still has enough space:

1. After creating a backup (and discovering that it was not saved to the USB flash drive from the previous section), navigate to the product folder for Solid Route Accounting, which on most systems is by default [START / Computer / Local Disk (C:) / Si] or simply C:\Si.
   
   
2. In this ‘Si’ folder, find the backup that was created. Daily backups are ‘GMDAY.ZIP’ and full backups are ‘GMFULL.ZIP’. Once that backup has been located, which is a compressed file, right-click on that file and from the right-click menu select ‘Properties’. Once again, if this is the correct backup file, the ‘Modified’ date should be today’s date.
   
   
3. Under the ‘General’ tab of this right-click menu, the ‘Size’ can also be found, typically given in bytes. Write down this number of bytes as the size of the backup, and then close this properties window, as well as the ‘Si’ folder.
   
   
4. Now we want to see how much free space is available on the USB flash drive. With the USB flash drive plugged into the computer, navigate to [START / Computer], where the USB flash drive should be listed under ‘Devices with Removable Storage’.
   
   
5. Right-click on this USB flash drive and from the right-click menu once again select ‘Properties’. Under the ‘General’ tab of ‘Properties’, the amount of ‘Free space’ available on this flash drive should be displayed. Compare this number to that of the size of the backup. If this 'Free Space' number is smaller than the backup's size, then there’s not enough free space to accommodate the new backup. Either delete some older backups on the USB flash drive to free up space, or purchase a new, larger USB flash drive to replace it.

If there is enough free space to accommodate this backup however, then it’s most likely that Solid Route Accounting is no longer directed towards the correct backup destination.

Is the Backup Pointed to the Right Location?

A minor weakness with Microsoft Windows is that whenever a USB flash drive is plugged into the computer, it has to be re-recognized. Although the computer will near always recognize the USB flash drive correctly, it may not necessarily assign it to the same letter drive as the pervious time it was connected. If this is the case, and the letter drive has not been changed in the Solid Route Accounting backup procedures to reflect this, then the system will not be able to backup onto the USB flash drive since it's pointed to the wrong letter drive. Thankfully though, this is an easy issue to repair by following the steps below for the Solid Route Accounting business system being used.

Enterprise Edition Users:

1. When the USB flash drive is plugged into the computer, navigate on the PC to [START / Computer]. The USB flash drive should be listed in the category, “Devices with Removable Storage,” and it’ll be assigned a letter drive, such as ‘(F:)’.
   
   
2. In Solid Business Central when creating a backup, the first screen arrived at is the Backup Configuration screen. For backups to a USB flash drive, ensure that:
   1. ‘Backup Disk Type’ is set to ‘iomega 100/220’
   2. ‘Backup Destination’ is set to the USB flash drive’s letter designation (which is ‘F’ from the example in step 1 above).
3. Use [CTRL+END] to continue with the backup.

for QuickBooks,
Dynamics 3i Edition,
FACTS Edition,
Eyewear Genetics Edition,
Microsoft Dynamics GP Edition,
Integration Edition Users:

1. When the USB flash drive is plugged into the computer, navigate on the PC to [START / Computer]. The USB flash drive should be listed in the category, “Devices with Removable Storage,” and it’ll be assigned a letter drive, such as ‘(F:)’.
   
   
2. In Solid Mobile Central when creating a backup, the first screen arrived at is the Backup Configuration screen. For backups to a USB flash drive, ensure that:
   1. ‘Backup Disk Type’ is set to ‘Custom …’
   2. ‘Backup Destination’ is set to the USB flash drive’s letter designation (which is ‘F:\’ from the example in step 1 above).
3. Use the [Backup Now] button to continue with the backup.