Except for catastrophic disk or system failures, we have seen few instances where an FF&EZ database has had to be restored from a backup. Nevertheless, this explains the process. Of course it depends on how the backup was made, so let's discuss the three backup types:

Restoring the data set is separate from installing the FF&EZ software, and you may need to do both with in cases where a new disk or computer is involved. See the section "Recovering from a hardware failure" below for details.

Important Note about Restoring Backups: If you restore the files in the Data (not image) folder, you must restore (replace) all of them, not just one or a few, to avoid creating "referential integrity" errors caused by data tables that are not in sync with those they depend upon. For instance, an older room file may not contain the room called out by entries in a newer worksheet file or even worse, you may produce items with duplicates of the hidden "internal keys" that tie everything together (to think about this should produce goosebumps). The system will crash when it encounters this type of situation or may produce erroneous reports. If you are unsure about how to properly restore a complete backup, share this page with your own technical support or call FF&EZ tech support for assistance.

Restoring from a Windows "image" backup

There is actually very little to describe here. You would use the 3rd party software to do one of three things: 

1. Restore the entire disk drive to a new (replacement) disk. This type of restore does not normally require reinstalling the software, since you are restoring everything after a major hardware failure.
2. Restore the entire FF&EZ data set folder to its original location on the existing disk or to the equivalent on a new PC or server. In the case of the latter, you will need to reinstall the software using the installer with the latest date. The installer will be found in the "Workstation" folder of the data set. 
3. Restore only the FF&EZ "Data" folder to its original location. This should not require reinstalling the software.

Each brand of backup software will have its own procedure for this, which will include allowing you to select the scope of what you want to restore.

Restoring from FF&EZ's "external" data set backup

The "external" backup is the easiest to use, since it is simply a regular file folder "tree" containing an exact duplicate of your live FF&EZ data set tree. So you can simply highlight and copy anything you need from that source, as long as you follow the rule described and highlighted above: The contents of the "Data" folder must be restored in its entirety.

With the external backup, you have these two options.

1. Copy the entire FF&EZ data set folder to its original location on the existing disk or to the equivalent on a new disk, PC or server. In the case of new hardware, you will need to reinstall the software using the installer with the latest date. The installer will be found in the "Workstation" folder of the data set. If you are copying the data set to a new disk on the same computer, but it is a replacement for a failed disk, you may also need to reinstall the software.
2. Restore only the FF&EZ "Data" folder to its original location. This should not require reinstalling the software, since this is only done to replace a corrupted database on an existing FF&EZ system.

Restoring from FF&EZ's "internal" backup (.zip or .fdz file)

Similar to restoring from the "external" backup, you have two options. The only difference is that you will be working with a zip file (also known as a "compressed folder). The two options:

1. Open the zip file and copy the entire FF&EZ data set folder to its original location on the existing disk or to the equivalent on a new disk, PC or server. In the case of new hardware, you will need to reinstall the software using the installer with the latest date. The installer will be found in the "Workstation" folder of the data set. If you are copying the data set to a new disk on the same computer, but it is a replacement for a failed disk, you may also need to reinstall the software.
2. Restore only the FF&EZ "Data" folder to its original location. This should not require reinstalling the software, since this is only done to replace a corrupted database on an existing FF&EZ system.

Recovering from a hardware (disk) failure

In the case of a complete hardware failure where your operating system is damaged, the disk has "died," or the power supply is not functioning, you can easily recover a fully functioning FF&EZ system if you have done regular backups (see Backing up your FF&EZ System).

Note that if you have a disk image backup, restoring FF&EZ is done as part of restoring the disk image. However, if you have to "rebuild" your Windows system by reinstalling all the software, this procedure is the one to use. In order to do this, however, these two things are needed:

• A full version backup file saved to another location that includes the data, the images (if any) and all the support files (as explained in the options above). This backup does not have to be recent as long as it is a full backup (the "data set") of the current software version. This may take the form of a large zip file or of a folder tree containing a complete copy of the data set.
• The most recent data (and images) backup, if the full version isn't the most recent.

Procedure

1. After fixing or replacing your computer or disk drive and installing Windows (if needed), create a new FF&EZ data set folder and extract or copy the "full version" backup contents into it. If you are using the uncompressed backup created by FF&EZ's "external" backup command, you simply copy all the files from it into the new folder.
   
   This should leave you with the familiar structure of folders named DATA, IMAGES, PLUGINS, WORKSTATION, etc. beneath the main data set folder (which is typically named "FF&EZ Database," but could be different).
2. Now, extract the "Data" and "Images" folders from the most recent data and images backup. This will replace the older files from the "full version" backup. You can skip this step if the full version was the latest or if you are restoring from the "external" backup data, which should include the latest files.
3. Open the restored "Workstation" folder, which should contain the latest installer (for backups made with version 3.2.70 or later).
4. Run the installer to set up the FF&EZ software program.
5. If this is being installed on a new disk or computer, the first time FF&EZ is started, it will ask you to point to the FFEZ.DBC file located in the DATA folder. This will be located in the data set folder tree you created above, and will complete the installation for that workstation.

Notes

• If FF&EZ was installed on a server in a multi-user system, the above applies to the server installation, but enabling all other users may require help from your IT tech support. On a rebuilt system, the "share folder" settings and/or original user credentials may no longer exist.
• If you saved custom "target" locations for export files, you may need to save those again.
• The backup file does not contain anything that was located under the "FF&EZ-Import" and "FF&EZ-Export" folders on the original disk. These are considered to be temporary files.
• If you have a "full version" backup made in the past, plus a recent "data" or "data + images" backup, extract the full backup first, then extract the more recent backup on top of that, replacing all duplicate files.
• If you only have a "data" or "data + images" backup and have a currently active maintenance & support agreement, you can request an update file and a copy of your client key file. Extracting the update file into a new location and then extracting your data backup on top of the "Data" folder will allow you to reinstall FF&EZ with the latest installer.

Recovering a single project from a database backup

You can pull a single Design project from a backup of your database, using an extended version of the procedure used to transfer single projects between two FF&EZ systems. This does not retrieve purchase orders, because importing them requires a more complex process than is available at this time.

We recommend that a Windows user with experience in manipulating files and folders do this kind of recovery.

This is done by extracting a full backup of the database in a temporary location in the data set, then temporarily changing FF&EZ's "data set location" to point to this temporary folder and exporting the desired project with the Export command on the Project List screen. Then (don't forget this!), change FF&EZ's data set location to point back to your "live" data set and use Add> Import on the  Projects screen to create a new, imported project.  You can control where FF&EZ looks for the data set with the Setup command on the main screen.

Procedure

1. In the live FF&EZ data set folder (the one containing the "Data" folder), create a temporary data folder. For our example, we will name it "TempData".
2. Extract or copy the contents of the "Data" folder from the backup into "TempData".
3. Start FF&EZ.
4. From the main screen, select Setup> System Information to display this tab:
   
   
5. On the row labeled "Data set location," click on the Change button, then follow the prompts to begin the process of locating the backup version of the data you copied in step 2.
6. You will be restarting FF&EZ, then locating the FFEZ.DBC file in the "TempData" folder, not the normal "Data" folder.
7. FF&EZ will go through its normal startup, but may update the backup data files if they are from an earlier version. It will then leave you at the main screen.
8. Open the Project List screen and highlight the project you need to bring into the active system.
9. Use the Export command to export that project to an .FDA file. For this procedure, you can save a later step by changing the target location to "FF&EZ-Import" instead of "FF&EZ-Export." Be sure to select the "Include images" option if you want any associated images, which will create an .FDZ file instead. Note: these image files may already exist and the import process you use later will allow you to compare these and skip importing them.
10. If there are other projects you want, repeat steps 8 and 9 as needed.
11. Critical: Return to the FF&EZ main screen, and repeat steps 4 through 6, except in step 6 you will now select the normal "Data" folder when you locate FFEZ.DBC. This will restore the system to use the active data folder.
12. You can now import the exported projects into the active system, by displaying the Project List screen and using Add> Import to locate the .FDA or .FDZ file you created in step 9. This procedure is covered under Importing Projects—but note that this command looks for the files first in the "FF&EZ-Import" folder. If you are restoring a project that exists but has been damaged, you will need to change the Project ID on either the old project or the one being imported.
13. You can delete the damaged version of the project once you are sure you have what you need.
14. Once you are satisfied with the results of your procedure and are sure you have switched to the active "Data" folder, we recommend that you delete the "TempData" folder to avoid future confusion.