Backup issues with SIMS

[Fudgemonkey]

Hi there,

We are a primary school attempting to migrate from SIMS to another MIS system. In our county, SIMS is centrally hosted, so after a huge amount of two-ing and fro-ing, we have finally managed to get a local SIMS and a copy of our data for us to backup and upload to our new MIS.

I have followed the walkthrough from our new MIS provider to make a SIMS backup (DBAttach, DMS, etc), and it all appeared to go well. However, the process only took about 5 mins (was expecting it take a couple of hours), and I cannot find the .bak file anywhere on computer. The closest I have found is folder in Sims/DOCSTORAGE//SIMS/sims titled: Backup_20190126_073943 (obviously date and stamp). This folder has lots of sub folders numbered (10-99), or a1, a2, so and so forth. Each folder is full of files (.rtf, .xls, .doc, and many without a suffix). Total size for the parent folder is 240MB.

As you can probably deduce, I'm not especially technical - I'm just trying to create a .bak file! County have been less than supportive (because we are moving away from SIMS and their SLA!)

 

Any help is gratefully received!

 

Thanks

FM

[snagrat]

I’m not a sims man but DBattach doesn’t make a backup I don’t think.

 

To make a backup the database needs to be attached and live, then use any SQL method to back it up, such as SQL Studio or FreeSQLBackup

[steveg]

5 minutes is about right for dbattach to backup sims unless you have a huge database. Mine is a couple of gig and takes a fair bit less than 5 minutes. It will create a zip file with the backup in when it is done.

 

The Docstorage folder you are looking at doesn't have the database in, that is where all documents / templates etc are stored. I'm pretty sure the backups end up in the sql backups folder, wherever you have sql installed.

 

Steve

Edited January 26, 2019 by steveg

[TwistedHelixis]

So is it not possible for your LA to simple supply you with the backup file you need to import in the new MIS? Just seems very long winded when all the LA need to do is give you your data in a form you need.

[Fudgemonkey]

Thanks for the reassurance regarding the timings! I'm guessing the sql backup folders should be found in SQLServer2017Media as it's the only thing on the laptop that has SQL in the title, or do I need to install a third party programme?

FM

[Fudgemonkey]

So is it not possible for your LA to simple supply you with the backup file you need to import in the new MIS? Just seems very long winded when all the LA need to do is give you your data in a form you need.

You would think so wouldn't you! However, they couldn't have been more difficulty. We first asked for our data on Oct 16 2018!

FM

[steveg]

I've just done one using dbattach, and mine ended up in D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.SQL2014\MSSQL\Backup as a .bak file. Will obviously depend where you have sql installed to!

 

Steve

[3s-gtech]

That’s the usual place, depending on install drive. If it’s not there, it ain’t working right 🧐

[matt40k]

Makes sense you're LA have given you it locally. Normally something will get missed and the answer will be "look it up on the old system". So assuming its all working locally...

 

Open c:\windows\sims.ini in notepad, should be a sql server folder that ends in binn, go to that folder, then go up a level, and you'll find a backup folder. There is your .bak file.

[Fudgemonkey]

Thanks everyone, after a bit of hunting around and following your advice, I have managed to make and locate the .bak file! Cheers!

FM