Personal Backup Version 5.3
	© 2012, J. Rathlev, IEAP, Kiel University

  Verification of backed up files

Use this function to check whether the last backup was error-free or whether files have changed since the previous backup. In contrast to verification during backup, each individual file at the destination will be compared to the same file at the source bit by bit.

Select the location of the backed-up files to be verified

When verifying files, you must consider how the data was backed up (see Backup destination):

• The backup directory is on a local storage medium or on a network drive
  You can verify files backed up as single files or in zip files:
  • Select the root directory if the data was saved as single files (even if compressed and/or encrypted).
  • Select the zip file in the root directory if the data was saved as one zip file per subdirectory. All subdirectories must contain a zip file of the same name.
  • Select a single zip file if all data was saved there.
• The backup directory is on an FTP server
  Verification is only possible if your data was backed up as single files (even if compressed and/or encrypted).
  Note: Since the option Security copies is not available with an FTP backup, the corresponding settings shown in the above screenshot will not be displayed.
  FTP settings for Verify
  Clicking the button will open a dialog to configure the FTP server connection parameters (see here):
  
  After clicking the button, the program will connect to the FTP server and read the remote directory tree of the backup for the user to select a subdirectory.

Compare to

Files can be compared either to files in the original source directory or to files in any other directory:

• Source directory: The source path will be derived from the pathname of the backup folder. Comparison to files at the source is only possible if you backed up the data with the option Drives separated, so that drive identifiers (such as LwC, LwD, ...) are part of the backup directory path.
• Selected directory: In this case you must browse to the directory containing the files that are to be used for verification. Clicking the button will open a dialog in which the directory can be selected.

Unpack gz files

This option must be selected if the backup was made into single compressed files. In this case, all files will automatically be unpacked on verification (default setting).
 

No decryption of enc files

Personal Backup adds the file extension enc for uncompressed encrypted files. These files are decrypted automatically on verification. If there are files from another application using this extension, the decryption will fail. You can prevent the program from decrypting such files by checking this option.
 

File filters

By using filename filters, filenames matching certain patterns may be included or excluded. Use the same rules as described for backup file filters (Standard file filter or Regular expressions).
 

Security copies

If security copies were created during backup or synchronization, these files should be excluded from verification because they will not exist at the source, making verification impossible.

• Excluding security copies made during backup
  Specify the same settings you used for the security copies during backup to exclude these files from verification. If placeholders were used for the suffix of the security copies, clicking the button will insert the appropriate filter pattern. If a number of prior versions has been saved, replace the counter with the "#" character (e.g. bak-#).
• Excluding security copies made during synchronization
  Specify the same settings you used for the security copies during backup to exclude these files and directories from restore. If placeholders were used, clicking the button will insert the appropriate filter patterns.

File age

You can specify whether you want to verify only files older or newer than a given fixed or relative date.

• Relative to actual date: older than the specified number of back-dated days, weeks, months or years
• Fixed date: older or newer than the given date

Mail delivery after verification

Similar to the option for backups, a mail with status information and optionally a log file can be sent after performing a verification task. The settings are the same as for backup.
 

Log settings

Clicking the button will open a dialog to adjust the log settings for Verify.
Click then button to view the current log.
 

Start verification

Clicking the button will start the verification. First the directory to be verified will be scanned to count all affected files. The subsequent comparison will have one of the following results:

• OK: all files compared were found to be identical.
• Warning: one (or more) file(s) for comparison were not found at source and/or one (or more) file(s) compared were found not to be identical.

Notes on log: The result of the verification will be shown in the log as described below:

• Short log: only those files that failed verification (errors) will be added to the log. Optionally, also those files not found at source (warnings) will be added.
• Long log: all verified files will be added showing the appropriate result.
• Extended log: as for Long log, but additionally all source files used for comparison will be added.