My first experience with climate prediction this year, I ran a model to successful completion. The second model crashed (computation error) in the period of \"max disk activity\" after completing 99.99% of the run. I was disappointed, and started on the third model. So to prevent model #2 experience, I copied off the project files once a week, thinking that I could recover from this sort of situation with a copy of the directory and all files.
On the third run, after reaching 75%, I exited all the work and started the backup copy. I botched it (my user error on moving versus copying files from the project directory). After that, I could not get the software to work again - the first attempt to re-run, immediately got a computation error. I tried repair and re-install the software (BOINC 4.45). I tried to copy the entire climateprediction.net directory from earlier backup. The project tab showed the climateprediction.net project. but the work tab was empty. Finally, I just uninstalled everything, and deleted the entire BOINC subdirectory from c:\\Program Files. So it\'s not on my computer any more.
I\'ll likely \"start from scratch\" again in about a month, but would like clear instructions on how to do backups/restores and to prevent all these failed experiments.
So my extended wish list is:
I would really like BOINC manager to have a function for \"backup work\", and \"restore work\", so people like me don\'t shoot ourselves in the foot trying to do these manually. This could also be used to transfer work in progress to a second machine. Also, I\'d like the feature to back-up and delete completed projects, to save disk space.

My computer: HP Laptop, model zt1185, OS Windows XP Professional, all updates applied.
Thanks,
Linda

Hi and Welcome Linda
To do a backup:
1.Exit BOINC and wait 20 sec to be sure that all apps are stopped and exited (you can check that nothing is running with the task manager (ctrl+alt+supp))
2.Back up <b>the BOINC directory</b> (not just the climateprediction directory because in the BOINC directory, there are all the xml files that contains infos about your model. Without these infos, BOINC can't start your CPDN model again)
3.Start BOINC again.

When you have a problem (model crash, etc),don't connect to the internet if possible.
Then you just exit BOINC, delete the current BOINC directory, and replace it by the backup you've made and restart BOINC again.
HTH.
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