Recovering a Database from an Alternate Hard Drive

This should be a last resort recovery effort, only used if you have no current database on a computer with Campground Master, and no alternate backup file.  If you have a recent backup or you have any computer that can run Campground Master and has current data, use the procedure "Copying to a New Computer" in the previous section.

This assumes you have access to the hard drive from a computer that was running Campground Master, or otherwise have copy of the hard drive or data folder that you can directly access from the new (or recovered) computer that will be running Campground Master.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Download & install Campground Master from our web site.

2. Use New database to create a database on the new computer, mainly to set up its location.

3. Copy the data files from the old hard drive / data location to the new database location.

4. Make sure the correct database file is set as a default.

No authorization code is needed for installation, since that's in your old database.

Here are more detailed steps:

These are given in general terms because specifics may vary.  Only basic computer knowledge is required for most steps.  If you're not sure how to do a particular step, consult your computer support person.

1. If you haven't been keeping current with updates renewals and thus can't use the latest version of Campground Master, you'll need to know what version you've been running so that you can install the same version on the other computer.  If you don't know this, contact support and we can tell you the latest you're allowed to use.

2. Locate an installation disk or download file for the same version you've been running.  All major versions can be downloaded from our web site if necessary.  (See http://CampgroundMaster.com/downloads.html)    If you're not authorized for the latest version, use the "Previous Versions" button at the top of that page to find your version.  If you can't locate the exact version then use the next higher version, assuming you're authorized to upgrade to it -- but be sure to also update any other computers that will still be using Campground Master.  

NOTE: Do not use your original installation disk unless you're sure it's the same version you've been running.  There is no need to install from an older version disk if you're going to be installing an updated version from the web site anyway.

3. Install the appropriate version of Campground Master (from the disk/download in step 2) onto the new computer.

4. Run Campground Master.  It doesn't matter whether you load the sample (demo) database or not.  However if it loads some old database and you don't know the login password, then you may need to load the sample database so that you can get logged in (automatically).  This might require downloading the "Free demo" from the web site, if you no longer have a Demo icon to start it from.

5. Go to Maintenance / New Database (create a new database file).  It will ask you for a database name, so enter the same name as your database used before if you remember it.  However it's not essential that it be the same, we'll handle that later.  This is mostly just to initialize the proper data folder.

6. This is the most complicated part if you're not a seasoned computer user.  You need to locate the old database.  The easiest way to do this is to use the "Search" function in Windows (also called "Find Files and Folders" in some versions), which you can access through the Start button in Windows, for instance.  

Search for files named "*.prk" on the drive with your old data (the asterisk is a wildcard that matches anything, so that means find any file with .park as the extension).  That should show you a list of files, and now you need to decide which one is correct.  Make sure you can see the "Date modified" for the files.  For the most part you will want to find the one most recently modified, excluding the one that you just created in step 5 above.  You probably won't want "demo", and also ignore any with "pre-restore" in the name.

Once you've located a likely candidate, make a note of its location (folder or path).

7. Back in Campground Master, use File / Open to open the file found in step 6.  Be sure you're looking in the right folder in the Open dialog (select the folder location in the "Look in" drop-down list).  Once you've located it, click Open.  You'll probably get some warnings about it not becoming the default database, etc.  You might also get a prompt saying that "Changes are present that are not in the database...", in which case you should answer Yes.

8. You will be prompted to log in.  The login should be the same as you've been using, since operator logins are stored in the database.  If you're sure that you're using the correct login but it does not accept it, then it's probably not the correct database file -- try another one from step 6.  Also, be sure to use an Administrator level login.  If you can't remember an administrator login that works, contact support.

8. Verify that the data looks correct.  If not, go back to step 6 and try to find another candidate file to open.

9. If it looks like the correct data and you can log in, then you need to move the database to the correct location and make it the default.  Go to Maintenance / Database Maintenance / Move the database to shared or public documents.  It should show you a confirmation, answer Yes.  It may also say that there is already a database there by the same name (e.g. if you used the same name in step 5), which is fine -- go ahead and move it.

10. It may have told you in step 9 that the database is now the new default.  If not, then you need to make it the default.  Go to Maintenance / Program Options, and click on the Database tab.  Verify that the Current database path begins with "C:".  If it starts with any other letter, then step 8 was not completed correctly, try that again.  If it does start with "C:", click the long button that says "Change the Auto-open database to the Current database" and confirm the prompts.

That should be it, your old data has been successfully moved to the correct location on the hard drive.

Notes:

If you're networking multiple computers (and presumably they are not set up yet since you're using this procedure, otherwise you could have used the simpler one to copy to a new computer from a networked computer's backup), then you need to go through the Networking Setup process, including copying this database to the other computers.

Any supporting software, such as X-Charge, PC Charge, printer drivers, etc. may also need to be re-installed on the new computer.

Also keep in mind that the printer selection and options in File / Printer Setup are computer-specific, so you may need to do some tweaking there also if you don't use the default printer settings for everything.