Old Server and the Unskilled Tech

So, first time post/mid-term viewer.

I'm "good with computers", I have little knowledge on databases and how servers run. So due to knowing somebody who knows someone, I ended up getting asked to check a server of a nearby small business. No idea what's going on except "Everything isn't working". I mostly did this to get some experience under my belt.

So, I go over to a food distribution place, and get to check out their server. Everything looks aged, and I'm told that the company who maintained the database software went under 4-5 years previously. So I look and check the backups to see if anything could be recovered. Backup media was full as of 2 years previously, and they never bothered to get new tapes. So I ask them to get the guy who has the backups to come in so I can talk to him.

Well, that's one easy option out the window. When I started digging around, I kept having to ask one guy to log out and not log back into the software because he was locking stuff up. I'm still not 100% sure what's going on, so when I have them try printing out, all the prices are missing. As I dig deeper, said person I had logout comes back on. Annoyed, I go over to him and ask what he's exactly doing. I see him trying to input prices to try and fix it, but it looks like he can't open the file but can input prices directly.

Well, that definitely rose a red flag. I jump back into the server, and pull up all recently edited files. I see one SQL file that has backups saved and the one that isn't a backup about 40x higher disk space used. Person who kept logging in was writing up orders directly into the price database and it wasn't overwriting old data. So booted him out one last time, swapped with the day old price sheet, and everything suddenly running smoothly. Let them know to bring the price sheet up to proper values since whatever glitch was fixed, and sat around for a bit.

The person who is their "IT guy" and in charge of backups comes in, and just immediately plops in a new backup and tries to skedaddle. I promptly intercepted him, and mentioned that the backup tapes are full. He comes up with this 5 minute explanation about tapes can't become full, and I'm tuning him out. When he finishes, I drag him over to the backup software, and showed him where it says they haven't been backed up because full. I then properly educated him on when you should get new backup media (Looked like they could get away with 2-3+ years with their setup). Problem hasn’t reoccurred in years and made a couple bucks.

Edit: Apparently typo and adding TLDR to post...

TLDR, Friend of a friend got me some work, I scrounged around and because of a user constantly making trouble, I found the problem. Then told guy in charge of backups that backups don't work.