Some ideas to make it safer:
When we run the server executable with --backup parameter it MUST NOT create a new HANSA.HDB and show a warning that HANSA.HDB is missing, as it seems it has happended in this case.
If HANSA.HDB is missing, then probably we can recover it with some undelete utility.

This happenned (creating of a new DB, importing defaults and then making a backup) when running with --backup:

2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) CallHal("DoActiveLanguage")
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) CallHal("DoActiveLanguage")
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) Windows Service version
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) Starting application...
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) 20547 cache sectors added
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) 16384 hash table entries added
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) *** running with new mail receiving and parsing ***
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) *** Using Clock Replacement ***
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) Open database HANSA.HDB

2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) *** using a freelist to keep track of free space ***
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) *** RELOAD LANGUAGES ***
2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) CallHal("DoActiveLanguage")

2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) done importing tag "" starting with tag "tb", 0 RLinks in the database

2023-03-28 17:11:15 (-1) done importing tag "tb" starting with tag "format", 0 RLinks in the database
....
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) HAL Files detected. Enabler missing, call support
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) CallHal("LoadWindowTags")
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) Server process running
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) CallHal("FindService")
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) ENABLER: get functionality SERVICE_SMTPSERVER already resolved to 0
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) 8.5 2021-11-02 (build 85420021)
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) /THREAD(1) Starting Mail sender

2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) *** Running with Local Backups, plan level 0 ***
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) Exporting Text Backup
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (0) Services Cache 2
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (0) EnablerFileStateVc 3
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (0) Exporting old records
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) Backup completed
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) Duration in seconds: 0
2023-03-28 17:11:16 (-1) Done Exporting Text Backup