Database window: Maintenance – Backup database

 

 

The selected database is compressed into a single file. The degree of compression depends on the contents of the database, but you should achieve a space saving of about 30% to 50% (considerably more if there is a great deal of text commentary).

It is the best way to create and maintain backup copies of your databases. This is especially true of games collections with numerous commentary and multimedia files. ChessBase will find them all and include them in the archive file.

The archive file has the ending “CBV”. The database window will show such archive files. If you double-click them, ChessBase unpacks and opens the original database.

 

Encrypting databases

For strong players the opening preparation they carry around to tournaments in a notebook computer may represent a security problem. ChessBase offers an encryption function to protect your work.

 

To encrypt a database, click it and then press Ctrl-Z (or click Backup database) as described above.

 

   In the dialog that appears click “Crypted"

   Type in a password, twice to avoid spelling errors. You can use spaces. The password is case sensitive, so you must type in capital letters exactly like you did originally.

   ChessBase stores the database in an encrypted archive with the file extension CBZ. It then offers to delete the original database, which is usually appropriate.

 

Important notes

After you create an encrypted archive, the original database files are physically deleted! ChessBase asks you to confirm this, because the files can never be recovered. The program overwrites them with random characters before deleting them, to ensure that they cannot be reconstructed with disk utilities. So make sure you type in and remember the password correctly. Otherwise your database will be irrevocably lost.

 

ChessBase encrypts files using a DES algorithm. There is no back door so we cannot help you to retrieve files if anything goes wrong. If you forget the password, your work is gone forever.