Load your Backup Database Files

If you have created backup database files, you can load them on to the server on which they were created or onto another server. This is useful if your system has had corrupted data or data has been deleted mistakenly, as you can use the backup files to restore your system to a previous state.

Typically, you would use your backup files to restore configuration from a previous time (usually because configuration changes made at a later date have caused unexpected results). To do this, you only need to load the Metadata, Configuration, Data and Data Files backups.

If you are restoring a backup onto a new server or a server that has lost the original data, you can also load the Historic Data, Event Journal and Historic Files. However, if the server already contains data, you should only load the Historic Data or Event Journal backup files if there is a known problem with the historic and event data on your system. This is because the Historic Data and Event Journal backup files will overwrite any existing historic and event files on your system. As a result, any historic data or events recorded after the last time in the backup files may be lost. There is no risk of data loss when restoring Historic Files.

To load your backup files onto a server:

1. On the server that is to load the backup files, use Windows Explorer to browse to your backup folders. These folders contain the individual backup files.
2. For each back up folder that you want to load:
   1. Make a copy of the backup folder
   2. Paste the copy into the location defined in the server’s configuration (see Locations of the Database Folders).

      When you restore a historic data backup, the backup may comprise several individual backup files. For example, this might be a series of weekly backup files, each of which contains a week’s worth of data. To restore such a backup, start by loading the oldest backup file. You should then load and merge each of the remaining backup files in the correct date order.