No Data

Your computer has crashed or maybe you got a new computer and you don't have your data. In either case, you want to know how to get your data back.

If the database was stored on a different computer like a server then, obviously, you still have your data. You can detetrmine its location from another installation of HICSOAP on a different, working computer. However, if your database was stored on the crashed computer your options for recovering the data are

  1. your own backups of the hard drive

  2. HICSOAP's auto-backup configured to backup to another computer. This is not the default configuration. The default is to backup to c:\HicSoapPro\Backup.

  3. Recover files from the hard drive of your crashed computer. When a computer crashes, it's possible that it is a component other than your hard drive that failed. A computer tech can recover the files from the hard drive in that case easily. If it's only partially "messed up", data recovery services could possibly retrieve your data. Search for files ending in .hdf, .hde, or .hib.

So you will either end up with a .hdf file which is the database file that HICSOAP opens and uses directly or you will have a backup file created by HICSOAP, a .hde or .hib file.


If you have a .hdf file then

  1. get HICSOAP up and running with a blank database

  2. Determine the location of the current, working, empty database file.

  3. close HICSOAP

  4. replace the blank database file with the recovered .hdf file

  5. start HICSOAP

Assuming that the database file is not corrupted, HICSOAP should open your database and everything should work.


If you have a HICSOAP backup file,

  1. get HICSOAP up and running with a blank database

  2. restore from the backup file (MAIN MENU -> DATABASE -> RESTORE).


If you determine that there is not an old database that can be recovered then you'll have to start over.