Recovering prior revisions from backup

Under rare circumstances, it might be necessary to restore from backup a document file that has since been modified in the Meridian vault. Examples of such circumstances include:

• The vault is configured to not retain history. A prior revision of a document may be recovered by restoring older stream files that were copied to backup media before the latest revision was released.
• A document was accidentally deleted and purged. The document may be recovered by restoring stream files that were copied to backup media before the document was purged.

Note    If a document is simply deleted in the vault and not purged, it can be recovered with the Undelete command from within the PowerUser client application as described in the BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise User's Guide.

To recover a prior revision from backup:

1. Determine the stream file name of the document that you want to recover. This can be done in one of two ways:

   • Search a recovery log file for the document name:
     1. On the Meridian application server, open the recovery log file in a text editor.
     2. Search the file for the file name of the document that you want to recover (for example, B9823 Specification.doc). The stream file to recover is the first file in the line containing the document name, similar to the following example:

        AMRecover %recoverdir% "\\?\C:\BC-Meridian Vaults\Demo\Mechanical\8FA0\546EE97A\40A311D6\7295C800\CONT.3D2"
        "\*" "\Projects\2002\Universal Joint\0564-02-0001\B9823 Specification.doc"

        In this example, the stream file to recover is C:\BC-Meridian Vaults\Demo\Mechanical\8FA0\546EE97A\40A311D6\7295C800\CONT.3D2.

   • Find the value of the Content property of the document in the vault:
     1. Find the document in the vault.
     2. Click the document icon on the Document tab in PowerUser. The Advanced Document Information dialog box appears on which the Content property can be found.

        Note    You must have the Advanced Document Properties privilege in the vault in order to view this dialog.

2. Find the stream file in your backup media. The file to recover must be dated prior to the date that the file was overwritten or purged in the Meridian vault.
3. Restore the file from the backup media using the software that was used to create the backup. The file can be restored to its original location or to an alternative location (recommended) where it can be examined for the correct contents.