[Dx4win] A Backup Recommendation

[Anthony R Gargano N2SS]

My strange tale starts with finally getting around to upgrading to 
V8. In preparation I decided to run various reports of my existing V7 
log so as to establish a baseline for comparison once the upgrade was 
complete. I noticed something wrong with my various totals. Upon 
inspecting the log file I found lots of QSO's missing and a 5 month 
gap in the log file. I back up the log file every couple of days and 
keep perhaps a month's worth of backup's before dumping the older 
files. I went through several backup files and each contained the 
same gap. I went back through several more backups and no gap - they 
were intact.

I can come up with no explanation for the gap. I could not have gone 
back to an old backup file by mistake and started logging from there 
because there were no backup files on the PC even close to a date 
that far back. Nor do I ever change my working log file. My radio PC 
runs 24/7 a UPS so the PC is never shutdown by a power interruption. 
About once a month I exit DX4Win, let the various Windows updates 
install and do a reboot. I then bring DX4Win back up and it 
automatically brings up my n2ss.dxl log file as that is what was 
running when I exited the program. Every couple of days I copy the 
then current n2ss.dxl file over to a different hard drive renaming 
the file to current_date.dxl.

I was able to reconstitute my log file from the collection of backup 
files that I have, I still have no idea what caused the gap and the 
missing QSO's. But now when I do a back up of my log file I first run 
<Filter/Count> to get a QSO total, rename the backup to qso_total.dxl 
and verify that the new backup is a higher number than the previous 
one. I have been a DX4Win user for years, since V3 as I recall, and 
love the program. I have never encountered this situation before and 
probably never will again but I did want to share my revised back up procedure.
Tony N2SS