[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Fastback Question

armhold@topaz.rutgers.edu (George Armhold) (06/10/89)

Our lab just installed FastBack Plus on our HP Vector RS/23 and I'm
having some problems trying to do a partial restore. Our hard drive is
partitioned as C, D, E and F. I performed a differential (partial)
backup of one directory on the C partition. The data was backed up to
a single 3.5" floppy. I want to restore the data to partition F,
instead of C, where it came from originally. It works fine when I tell
it to restore all of the data contained on the floppy, but when I try
to get a directory of the floppy (for selective file restoration) I
get error 84- Unable to locate history files. After this error, I
restore the history files to drive F from the floppy backup. I try to
get  a listing again (via the "Choose Files" command and F3.) It gives
me the error when I hit F3. Can someone please explain where I'm going
wrong? I know that what I'm doing sounds pretty trivial, but I'm
supposed to write a technical report on this so that others may be
saved the trouble of what I'm going through- so it has to be thorough. 

Thanks in advance,
-George

mikek@col.hp.com (Mike Karin) (09/07/89)

I have a friend with a brand X clone.  She is running MS-DOS 3.2,
has a 40 MBYTE drive with a 1.2 Mbyte 5.25 inch floppy.  The
computer is switchable from 6/12MHz. 

The problem is this: Until recently, she was running it in the slow
speed mode ( she didn't know any better).  She was doing periodic
backups with Fastback.  After I showed her the high speed mode, she
complained that Fastback didn't work any more.  I discovered that
the system has a real flakiness at the high speed when trying to
use Fastback.  Fastback has a hardware test that tries slow,
medium, and high speed DMA to the floppy.  With the CPU set to
12MHz, these tests won't run at all.  With the CPU set to 6MHz,
the tests (and Fastback) seem to run OK.

On one occasion while playing with the machine, I also noticed that
it didn't want to format a floppy in the 12MHz mode either.  But,
after trying a format at 6MHz, a format at 12 MHz did work.

Does anybody have any idea what may be the problem here?

Mike Karin
Hewlett-Packard Company
Colorado Springs Division
mikek@hp-col.col.hp.com