Maintaining Your Herd Database

DairyLive makes it easy to maintain your data and keep it safe from loss or corruption. The most important thing you can do is to backup your herd database often. If something happens to your herd database, the easiest way to restore it is from a backup. If you do not have a recent backup, you will need to re-enter the data, which can be tedious and error prone.

What Is a Herd Database?: All of the data for your herd is kept in a file called a herd database file. This file is like most any other file on your computer. It has an extension of ".HRD". The extension tells Windows that the file is used by DairyLive.

Backing Up Your Herd Database: Periodically you should backup your herd database. Use the Backup Wizard to perform this operation. You can backup your herd database to floppy drives, a USB or CD-R drive, or to the Internet using SafeLive.
: You can have DairyLive remind you to backup your herd database every so often You can set this up through the Options dialog.

Restoring Your Herd Database: In the event that you do lose your herd database, you can restore it from a backup using the Restore Wizard. To do this, start DairyLive. If the Herd Explorer appears, close it by clicking on the X in the upper right corner.; After the restore operation is complete, the database will automatically be opened.

Compacting Your Herd Database: As you add more data to your herd database, the size of the herd database file will grow. Sometimes you will delete data from the database, but this space is not automatically recovered. The file will continue to grow in size as you use the database, even if you are not adding a lot more information.; Occasionally you should compact your herd database. This will reduce the size of the file so that it occupies less disk space and performs faster. It's easy to compact your herd database. Select Tools->Compact Herd Database from the main menu. Confirm your decision by clicking OK in the message box. That's all there is to it!
: NOTE: Whenever you backup your herd database to a removeable drive, it will be compacted before the backup begins.

See Also: Backup Wizard; Options Dialog; Restore Wizard