Now You're Cooking! Tip

June 2005

NYC and Backups

There are several ways to back up your important files with NYC.

To Backup ALL Your User Files

This is the easiest and most comprehensive backup method. Run NYC and use File... Backup... to back up ALL your user files (cookbooks, menus, shopping lists, dropdown lists, unit conversions, etc.). Then copy the resulting “.nyb” file to your backup medium. This file will not include files you may have stashed in any other folder, so if you have cookbooks stored in another folder, you will have to backup that folder another way. This will create a compressed file containing all the files in your NYC user folder. You can subsequently restore individual or all files from the “.nyb” backup file using File… Restore….

To Backup a Single Cookbook

To backup a single cookbook, use NYC’s File... Zip Cookbook.... Then find the resulting .zip file (cookbookname.zip) in your user folder and copy it to your backup medium. The “.zip” file will include your cookbook and all its indexes (.gcf, .idx, .cdx, .cli, .rdx, .rli, .tag, .imx, .ima)

You can also email your cookbook (NYC will zip it and email it) to yourself or someone else for receipt and saving on another PC. Save the file in a backup folder on the other PC.

To Backup the NYC Program Itself

You don’t really need to backup the NYC program itself, because you can always redownload it from our website at http://www.ffts.com/nyc32dl.htm . If you want to keep a backup copy of the setup file, just copy the setup file (e.g., “snyc566.exe”) to your backup medium.

Comments on Backup Media

Here are some remarks on backup media, in order from highest to lowest recommendation:

USB Flash Drive or “Memory Stick” (16 MB – 1 GB)

A USB flash drive is ideal for storing your backups because of its small size, portability, speed, ease of use, and large storage capacity. You must make sure yours is large enough to handle your backups. Use File Explorer (right click Start menu and select “Explore”) to copy your “.nyb” backup files from your NYC folder or “.zip” files containing zipped cookbooks from your NYC user folder directly to the USB drive. You can even carry the USB drive around in your pocket because they are small.

Zip Drive (100 MB - 250 MB)

You can backup important files to a Zip drive. Zip drives are slow but reliable, and you can store the zip disk in a safe place offsite.

Separate Hard Drive (40 GB – 300 GB)

You can backup important files to an additional internal or external hard drive. Hard drives are fast and reliable. This is a good backup method because the chances of losing both your main hard drive and your backup hard drive at the same time is quite small, unless your house burns down. In that case, losing your NYC backup files is the least of your troubles!

CDs (640 MB) and DVDs (4.5 GB)

NYC cannot write directly to a CD or DVD - that requires CD/DVD burner software to drive the laser in your CD or DVD burner. So use NYC to create a .zip (File… Zip Cookbook…) or .nyb (File… Backup…) and burn the .zip or .nyb file to CD. NOTE: CDs and DVDs are NOT recommended for backup, because when you restore a file from CD or DVD, it will have the “read-only” attribute that may not allow NYC to function with that file until you undo the file’s read-only attribute. This can be a real pain.

Diskettes (1.44 MB per diskette)

You could put all your cookbook.zip files onto diskettes. This is not easy, because diskettes don’t hold much data, and your NYC cookbooks can be huge. The best way to do this is to use WinZip (or similar zip software) to get everything into one .zip file that spans multiple diskettes. In other words, create an “allcookbooks.zip” file on your A:\ drive, then use WinZip to add all your .zip (zipped cookbook) files to it. WinZip will prompt you for additional diskettes as needed to span the “allcookbooks.zip” file across multiple diskettes. You could also do this with your “.nyb” file (zip it with WinZip and save to A: drive, then let WinZip prompt you for additional diskettes as needed).

See Also These Previous NYC Tips:

Backing Up User Spell Check Dictionaries Feb 04

Back Up and Restore NYC User Files Sep 02

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