* Special help if you have a damaged GigMaster 4.5 file *

ABOUT DAMAGED FILES

Any file on any hard drive can become damaged or corrupted. It doesn't happen very often, but it is always possible. It isn't anybody's fault; not the user's, not the software developer's. It's just the way computers are.

The best precaution against losing data in the event of file damage, or hard drive failure, is to REGULARLY BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE! Use a commercial backup program, a shareware product, or just drag and drop your files to some removable media or another hard drive on a network. You can even back up your hard drive to a remote server on the internet.

If one of your GigMaster files should become damaged, you shoul replace the damaged file with the saved copy from your hard drive backup. Depending on how frequently you back up and how heavily you use GigMaster, you might lose some of your most recently entered data. But the majority of your data will be restored. If you back up daily, you can never lose more than one day's worth of data.

There is also a routine within GigMaster which provides an additional (or alternate) protection against data loss called "save to archives." It can be performed automatically or manually. This routine saves the current data from GigMaster's files into text files which are stored in a folder named "archive" located within the GigMaster folder. Since only the data is stored here, none of the functionality of GigMaster, these archive files are relatively small.

In the event of file damage, if restoring the file from a hard drive backup is not possible or unavailable, you can:
1) Move the "archive" folder out of the GigMaster folder (thus preserving it.)
2) Reinstall GigMaster from the CD-ROM, or from the downloaded installer. (This will REPLACE your entire GigMaster folder and all its contents.) Note that if you are reinstalling from the downloaded installer, we'll have to provide you with a new password.
3) Drag your preserved "archive" folder into the newly installed GigMaster folder, REPLACING the newly installed "archive" folder.
4) Within GigMaster, run the "revert from archives" routine. This will import the saved data from your preserved archive into your newly installed GigMaster, and you're back in business.

Of course, the data you import will only be as recent as the last time you "saved to archives." So just as it is a good idea to back up your hard drive often, it's good to "save to archives" frequently.

Given these two above precautions, it should never be necessary to repair a damaged GigMaster file. Such repair is, however, sometimes possible depending on the degree of damage. Repair of damaged files is not offered as a free software support service, since such damage is not a product of the software itself, but rather a consequence of the complex and sometimes fragile nature of operating systems, and the unpredictable results of combining various programs and extensions on your hard drive. If you have a damaged GigMaster file, and have neither backed up your hard drive nor utilized GigMaster's "save to archive" routine, and wish to submit it to the Shubb company for repair, contact us by email. We will ask you to send us the file(s) as an attachment to an email message. If we are able to repair them, the cost is $20 for the first file and $10 for each additional file sent at the same time.

 

For a damaged GigMaster 4.5 file

Now available: a file recovery utility for GigMaster 4.5. Download the file (recover.G45) place it in your GigMaster 4.5 folder, double-click on its icon, then follow the onscreen directions.

download the GigMaster 4.5 file recovery utility for Windows.

download the GigMaster 4.5 file recovery utility for Mac.