Owner`s manual

Page 3-4 Chapter Three
Eagle 250 Owner's Manual, Revision 01
Diskettes require much the same care as magnetic tapes:
•
The outside case of a diskette protects the actual recording surface inside—don’t touch the
recording surface itself.
•
Treat diskettes gently. Fingerprints, scratches, spills, and dirt can ruin them.
•
Keep your diskettes in a dust-free environment.
•
Never expose diskettes to an electromagnetic field—it could erase your data! For example, do not
leave diskettes on top of the computer or a terminal since the equipment inside emits a strong
magnetic field.
•
Keep magnets away from your diskettes. Even weak magnets such as those in paper clip holders
can erase data on a diskette.
•
Avoid temperature extremes. Do not expose diskettes to temperatures below 50 degrees
Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) or above 125 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius). Do not
leave your diskettes next to a window where direct sunlight can cook them.
Diskettes should be at about the same temperature as your computer. If the place you store them
is at a very different temperature than the computer, give a diskette a few minutes to adjust to the
computer’s temperature before using it.
BACKING UP YOUR DATA
Computers and disk drives are very reliable, but nobody can prevent all unforeseen occurrences: a power
outage, spilled cup of coffee, fire, or hardware malfunction could happen to anyone. So, no matter how
trouble-free your computer is, please remember one important thing—you must keep current copies of
the data you are working on! This copy is your "backup."
Your data is valuable—that’s probably one of the reasons you bought a computer to store and work with
it. How long would it take to re-enter the entire company payroll or all of your accounts receivable
invoices if they were lost? What if you could not reconstruct the information no matter how much time
you had?
All Eagle 250 computers come with some type of tape backup device. Whether yours is a
streaming tape or DAT drive, learn to use it! Develop regular backup procedures and follow
them! If disaster strikes, you'll be glad you did.
You should back up some or all of the data on your computer at regular intervals. How often you need to
back up depends on how often you add or change data. If you add important data every day, you should
back up your computer each night. If the data changes only once a week, back up once a week, etc.
We strongly suggest you have several sets of backup tapes, so you never record over your most recent
tape. That way, if something goes wrong during a backup, you still have recent data should you need it.
It’s also a good idea to keep one backup off-site so your data is safe if there’s a fire, flood, or similar
disaster in your building. Don’t let one broken water pipe destroy all your records!
Backup programs generally work best if no one else is using the computer when they run, so it’s often
most convenient to run them at night. AMOS offers two ways—command files and the Task Manager—