Practice Safe Backup and Restore

No matter what method you use to perform a backup of your Palmtop, here are a couple of cautionary notes.

1. Every time you open one of the built in database applications, the file is changed and the archive bit for the file is set. If you are using PKZip or XCOPY to perform an incremental backup based on the setting of the archive bit, the database files will be backed up even if you did not change anything in the files.

2. If for some reason, a database file is corrupted it will be backed up. Oftentimes this will overwrite a previous, "good" backup of these files.

3. To get around this, back up the database files (i.e., those that have an extension of .?DB) to a different location on the A: drive or on the hard disk of your desktop computer. Do not send the files to the same directory where the previous database files are located.

4. No matter how elaborate or sophisticated a backup procedure becomes it's worthless if you can't restore the whole Palmtop, or parts of the Palmtop's data and applications, from the backup files. Before you pat yourself on the back for backing up, run a test to see how easy it will be to restore your Palmtop. If it's impossible or difficult to restore, it may be time to return to the drawing boards to look at other backup procedures.