Quicken 2006 for Starters: The Missing Manual

Chapter 3. Backing Up Your Financial Information

• Backing Up Data Files

• Restoring Quicken Backups

Once you start using Quicken, paper and pencil rapidly start to look like an unthinkable hassle. You can now balance your checkbook, prepare your taxes, plan for a comfortable retirement, and have enough time left over to go spend some money—and dutifully enter those transactions into Quicken, as well.

The pleasure of doing your finances in Quicken evaporate instantly, though, if you lose your data to a hard-disk crash or other computer disaster. Good backups, as this chapter outlines, get you back to work quickly.

GEM IN THE ROUGH: Why to Back Up

You’re probably reading this chapter so you can be prepared when your PC’s hard drive crashes and takes your Quicken data file with it. But keep in mind these other situations when backup files can restore your adrenaline level to normal:

* You delete your Quicken data file by mistake.

* You’ve assigned a password to protect your data file and now even you can’t open it.

* Your data file doesn’t open after being damaged by a power outage or power surge.

Quicken backups are also the easiest way to move a Quicken data file from one computer to another; for instance, to load it onto your laptop before leaving on an extended business trip. Back up the data file on the first computer, copy the backup file to the new computer, and restore the backup file there.

Backing Up Data Files

Quicken provides several backup methods, all of which work well for backing ...