This page provides information to help you understand 
how to recover the fax server after data corruption

It is also a sad but well proven fact that from time to time, Microsoft Windows will corrupt database and other files due to such problems as cross linked clusters on your hard disk, corrupted FAT systems, and even power outages and spikes can cause these problems.

The NetCFax Server system is actually two almost entirely separate programs that both run at the same time.  The interface window you see is the main program, but behind that, and totally unseen, the fax engine is running, and it is the engine that actually handles all of the fax sending, receiving and the control database.

The fax engines control database is crucial to correct operations, and if this gets corrupted, the classic indicators are the inability to open one or more of the fax cabinet drawers without the fax server "crashing".

RESOLUTION
Unlike a great many Windows programs today, NetCFax understands the possibility of these problems occurring to any of us, and does it's very best to protect you from loosing your data by performing automatic backups each day of all the crucial files required to reinstate your system to a previous point in time.

The configuration for this system can be found at the bottom of the Cabinet menu on the Fax Server.  It is labeled "Auto Backup Options". When you select this, a window opens that lets you control this system.

You can enable or disable it entirely (the default setting is for the system to be enabled), set the time each day that you want the backup to be performed, and even configure it to also back up all of your actual fax files that are in the fax cabinet.

There is also a Purge option here that lets you keep the backups neat and tidy by purging any backup older than xx days. 

You may ask why we do this when you may run your own backup systems anyway, and the answer is quite simple.  Due to the way that Windows works, some of the essential files used are NOT stored in the NetCFax server's sub folder tree.  In fact, depending on the platform, they may in Windows\system, Windows\system32, or even in Documents and settings\username\Windows\system.

Quite naturally, NetCFax knows where these files are, and is therefore best positioned to handle a full backup.

RECOVERY
To recover from such a problem is actually pretty simple if you have the NetCFax server performing this backup each day.  The first thing you may well to do is to delete the corrupted database files.  

First of all, CLOSE DOWN THE FAX SERVER.

Then open Windows Explorer, and use the Search option in Explorer to search for a file named FAXLOG32.DBF.

Once you find this, you will see that there are two other files with the same name, but different suffixes of FPT and CDX.

If you want to, save copies of these three files somewhere safe, and then :- DELETE ALL THREE OF THESE FILES...

NOW RESTART THE FAX SERVER AGAIN.

It should start normally, but you will not have any faxes at all.

Now go to the Cabinet - Auto Backup menu option again, and click the button labeled "View available backups" on the configuration window.  This displays a new window listing all of the backups you have.  We recommend that you select a date that is immediately prior to the date you started to have problems, and then click the "Restore using selected" button.

This will automatically replace the databases and other configuration files with those backed up on the selected date for you.  Once this has been completed, we suggest you restart the fax server once more, and your system should now be working again, with all data up to the selected data being available.  Naturally any data later than this will not be available, although any TIF files of received faxes etc will still be in the cabinet, but the database will not have the required pointer entries to these any more to allow you to view them from within NetCFax.

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