Comments on: Using Online Backups to save your QuickBooks Data

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:11:21 +0000

Helen, copy that QBW file to any place on your system that you like (assuming this is a single user situation). Your “My Documents” folder is OK, if you are the only user in QB on that system. You could use the Documents folder in the public user folder as well. If you have Vista, you could use the path in the comment I left a bit earlier. It actually isn’t important where it is (if you are the only user) – other than you need to be able to find the file and it should be in a place that your Carbonite backup system is watching.

Then run QB and use the Open Company File option to locate that company file and open it – that should take care of everything.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:06:12 +0000

Helen, you are looking for a file with a file type of “QBW”. Without knowing how you set up your system in the first place I can’t tell you where exactly the file is – you actually can put it anywhere when you create a company file. If this is a multi user situation it might not even be on your local computer.

If it is single user, and you are on Vista, take a look in C:UsersPublicDocumentsIntuitQuickBooksCompany Files – that would be a typical default location.

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:11:55 +0000

I see a QBW file downloaded by Carbonite, can I “import” that into my newly installed QB program? Just trying now to figure how to get the old QBW file into the newly installed Quickbooks 2008 program.

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:50:07 +0000

Thanks Charlie, I reinstalled the QB program from my disk, I need the “data” files though from Carbonite, for the QB program to open. I have around 400 QB invoices I need to recover, what would I be looking for? Just one folder or file?
Thanks for your help.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:32:18 +0000

Helen, you can look in your Carbonite folder online to see what is there. The primary file, if you are on a Windows system, is your “QBW” file. That is the primary data file. There are others, but used less (for the shipping manager, loan manager, etc). Your PROGRAM files most likely have to be reinstalled from the program CD rather than from Carbonite.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:53:25 +0000

How do I know that all of my QB files are downloaded from Carbonite? Will Carbonite put them all in a nice folder and I download the folder that contains all my .qbx files? I just had to re-format my computer and do have Carbonite. Just not sure what to do with the files being download. I re-installed QB 2008 and re-installed the Carbonite downloader program, now what?
Thanks….

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:26:04 +0000

Anna: Good for you for testing if your backups are good or not! Lot’s of people don’t find out about that until it is too late. Unfortunately, I don’t have a direct answer for you at this time. One question – do you run QuickBooks in single user or multi user mode? If you think you are in single user mode, double check by selecting “File” and seeing if it says “Switch to multi user mode” or “Switch to single user mode”.

A test that you can make quickly – make a backup with QuickBooks to create a QBB file, and save that in a folder that you set up for backups. Then have DDB back up the QBB file. Restore the QBB and see if you can open that.

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:51:49 +0000

I have been using Data Deposit Box happily for years to backup QuickBooks data files online. I have always been able to download the file from DDB and QB will open the downloaded file successfully. However, all of a sudden I have not been able to do this, and I have isolated the problem to 2009 QB datafiles–they will not open when downloaded from storage at DDB. I get error messages about “QuickBooks has lost connection with the network”. I’m not on a network. I even did this experiment–I downloaded a 2008 data file from DDB and was able to successfully open it with both 2008 QB AND 2009 QB (allowing it to update). But a 2009 data file just won’t open when downloaded from DDB. I really don’t want to have to stop using DDB just because I upgraded to 2009 QB, so does anyone have any comment or ideas about how to solve this? Have you tested your 2009 QB data file and did it open? (p.s. Just so you know, I can move my 2009 data file around with a flash drive, just not with DDB)

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:04:17 +0000

Jerry: Carbonite will let you restore files to a different computer, but it is a bit complicated. I haven’t tried it myself. The help file says that you need to install Carbonite on that other computer, and then you have a different process to follow. They do have a tutorial on how to do this. There are some potential issues here – if it is a one-time thing, not a problem, but if you do this regularly you then have to pay for an account on that other computer, as I understand it. Data Deposit Box is better in this regards – you aren’t paying by computer, you are paying by volume of data, and so you can restore data to any computer you wish.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:01:24 +0000

Kathleen: I will update the article as to Carbonite and prior revisions – there is some limited ability to get prior revisions. However, I don’t consider it adequate for “archival” purposes. The prior revisions aren’t all kept – they keep a selection of them, with recent revisions kept but after awhile it starts to weed them out. My experience with this doesn’t match what the help file says – I don’t see as many revisions kept as they say. And they delete backups of files that you have deleted from your computer after 30 days, which I don’t like. ALSO – very good reminder about the QuickBooks backup – I do mention that in the other backup article (that this article links to), so I didn’t repeat it here, but it is critical that you periodially run the QuickBooks backup feature to clean up the QB data.