backing up

[Neal Reeves]

Can someone explain to a dummy how to save my jobs and my cabinet library on a disc so that I can get them off my computer? They seem to be taking up a lot of needed space.

[JohnLashuay]

Neal,

If you want to save them to a disc, you need to insert an empty CDR or CDRW into cd burner. It should prompt you as to saving info to the disc. Use one of the programs that you computer has. Once the program has been loaded, you will need to find your files that you would like to back up and click the "add files" or something to that effect. Once you have all the files added, you will then burn them onto the disc.

Hope this helps.

[Kerry Fullington]

Neal,

You can backup your cabinet and job files to a disk but you can't run them from there. You can't move the cabinet files or eCabinets won't be able to find them. You will also have to be able to read and write to your job files.

Time for a bigger hard drive.

Kerry

[JohnLashuay]

Kerry,

Is it possible to use an external hard drive to back up and access the file to run them off of the external drive?

[Kerry Fullington]

John,

I think using Version 5.2 you could probably save your jobs to an external drive and work them from there but not the cabinet files.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

[DanEpps]

John,

I think using Version 5.2 you could probably save your jobs to an external drive and work them from there but not the cabinet files.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

This is correct but I think it would be terribly slow to load jobs from an external drive.

[Neal Reeves]

Kerry,
I'm sorry that I am so ignorant, but I don't understand. What does the backup button under the file drop down menu do? I thought that this would put them on a disc or something. What if I get a virus on my computer and lose everything on my hard drive? Will I ever be able to restore my jobs and library? What will I do when I get another computer? Will I be able to transfer my jobs to the new one or will they be gone?

Thanks,
Neal

[Gary Puckett]

Neal,

I think the back up files/restore files just makes a copy of the job file and then stores it in another folder at a specified location, this is just a precautionary step ( I Think ). If you lose your hard drive you are SOL. (I think). If you get a new computer you can just email yourself the job file once you install eCabinets on the new computer.

Gary

[Gene Kimmi]

Neal,

I save my job files on a thumb drive. I open Ecabinets, click on load existing job, then right click on the job file. In the box that pops up, go to Send To, then to the thumb drive I use. A box always pops up saying the drive will not handle this type of file, but the jobs are always on the thumb drive. If I remember correctly, I can double click the job file on the thumb drive, and it will open in Ecabinets, or you can right click and use open with Ecabinets.

I also use the back up feature in Ecabinets to back up all files on a thumb drive. I use the Lexar thumb drives from Walmart.

[DanEpps]

Kerry,
I'm sorry that I am so ignorant, but I don't understand. What does the backup button under the file drop down menu do? I thought that this would put them on a disc or something. What if I get a virus on my computer and lose everything on my hard drive? Will I ever be able to restore my jobs and library? What will I do when I get another computer? Will I be able to transfer my jobs to the new one or will they be gone?

Thanks,
Neal

Backups are just that--backups. The default location for backups can be changed to place the files on an external drive or a drive shared from another computer on your network. If you do not save your backups to an external or network drive then you should copy them to a CD or DVD to keep from losing all of your work if your internal drive were to fail.

But, that's not what you asked. You asked how to move the files to a location off of your computer and use them from there:

Can someone explain to a dummy how to save my jobs and my cabinet library on a disc so that I can get them off my computer? They seem to be taking up a lot of needed space.

You must leave all files other than jobs in their default location or eCabinets will not work. You can theoretically store job files for use by eCabinets on an external drive but access to the files would be slower than from an internal drive. You cannot store working files of any type on a CD or DVD as the files must be changable.

If you are running out of space you might try running the disk cleanup tool. It will delete temporary files and the like. Make sure you empty your recycle bin as files you have previously deleted remain there until you empty it.

You can probably add an additional internal drive to your computer to gain more storage (unless you are using a laptop). Huge internal drives are pretty cheap and are easy to install.

[Dennis Englert]

Just to add. You indicated that you were running out of disk space, so you would want to move your job files, "some" eCabinet's files, and other files from other applications that you don't need daily to either an external hard drive, CD/DVD, or USB flash drive.

In Version 5.2, the Job Files can be kept anywhere, but your cabinet libraries must be stored in a folder you've created in the Cabinets directory of c:\Program Files\Thermwood\eCabinet Systems\.

The backup/restore function will backup your files, but will "not" clean up any disk space on your hard drive. It is a duplicate of specified files only, that can be retrieved in the event of hard drive failure or is sometimes used to synchronize with other computers.

Dennis