Database Backup for Beginners

You need to do a forum backup, and yes you need do do it now, put it off and it may be to late!

  1. Login to your board and go to the "Admin Control Panel".
  2. Your "phpMyAdmin" link is found in the "Utilities" section.
  3. Enter your database username and password to enter.
  4. Select your database (if you have more than one).
  5. Once loaded, click on the "Export" tab at the top of the page.
  6. Under the Export table you will see a large box showing either the database name (if so just highlight), or a list of tables starting with phpbb_ , make sure the SQL input button is chosen, and click on "Select All" which will highlight all tables.
  7. Under the SQL Options table (in the bottom Data section) tick the "Complete inserts" checkbox.
  8. Under the Structure table (which should be auto-checked) you will see a "ADD DROP TABLE" checkbox which you should also tick.
  9. Near the bottom of the page tick the "Save as file" checkbox.
  10. If you would like to compress the file into a zipped/gzipped format select so, and click "Go".
  11. You will then get a normal popup save window, where you should select "Save to disk".

Easy! The database backup is created, the advantage is that you have the file on your hard-drive, and will be able to check if it's complete. If it's less than 8 MB, you know something has gone wrong, so just try again.

  1. Open your backup file in a text editor and scroll to the bottom.
  2. The last thing you should see is the "phpbb_words" table dumping data, if it is you know your backup is completely successful.

    --
    -- Dumping data for table `phpbb_words`
    --