mstevens@tekig4.TEK.COM (Michael Stevens) (08/24/88)
I have been following the discussions about disk problems and backups, and having recently purchased an AT clone, figured I'd better back up my disk (Seagate 20MB). I'm using MSDOS 3.21. I don't have any puchased toolkits (yet). First I used DOS's "backup", but was unimpressed with the fact that my harddisk subdirectories were not retained. I like subdirectories, and wanted my backups to reflect my harddisk so I can find things more easily should I ever have to back up individual files. So, I tried to use "xcopy c:*.* a: /e /s" and then "xcopy c:*.* a: /e /s /v". The AT chugged along happily for awhile on some smaller directories. BUT THEN.... Unfortunately, I got the infamous "disk error reading drive a: Abort, Retry, Ignore" message intermittently, most often with files over 32K bytes. I manually created directories and used "copy" with no problems at all. I looked at the differences between the "original" and "bad" copies (after using ignore), and there were many " <||||||||" characters in the trashed copy. Anybody know why "xcopy" is unreliable?? I get the general impression that MKSToolKit allows me the features I want with some reliability. Truth?? I've also heard that FastBak is good. Any recommendations??
suitti@haddock.ima.isc.com (Steve Uitti) (08/24/88)
In article <3143@tekig4.TEK.COM> mstevens@tekig4.TEK.COM (Michael Stevens) writes: >...having recently purchased an AT clone, figured I'd better back up my disk >(Seagate 20MB). I'm using MSDOS 3.21. >First I used DOS's "backup", but was unimpressed... Worse, I've heard (unconfirmed) rumors that the restore side of "backup" can damage the format of your hard disk. >So, I tried to use [xcopy and had problems] I haven't had any problems. I've used xcopy to copy 5 MB directory trees (with some large files) between hard disk drives, and to/from 360K floppies. My XT clone is a Leading Edge MSDOS 3.10, with an xcopy from a 3.2 system. >I've also heard that FastBak is good. Any recommendations?? I have the newer FastBack (plus?) with compression. It really is fast, it has a relatively nice user interface - especially for restorations, it seems to work. I haven't done many restores. Stephen.
patrick@crcmar.uucp (Andrew Patrick) (08/31/88)
In article <3143@tekig4.TEK.COM> mstevens@tekig4.TEK.COM (Michael Stevens) writes: >Anybody know why "xcopy" is unreliable?? I get the general impression >that MKSToolKit allows me the features I want with some reliability. Truth?? >I've also heard that FastBak is good. Any recommendations?? After trying a couple of "fast" backup utilities (including something called COREfast), around here we went to XCOPY because it preserves subdirectories, makes any single file recoverable, and is highly RELIABLE. We are running 9 AT clones with DOS 3.2. On a daily (or weekly) basis we run XCOPY C:\*.* A:\ /s/m/v -- this picks up the files with the archive bit set. We have had no problems after about 6 months of doing this. Based on your comments, I hope this continues, but I can't recommend any "fast" backup utility. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andrew Patrick, Ph.D. Communications Research Center, Ottawa, CANADA SmartMail: patrick@crcmar.uucp UUCP: ...utzoo!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!crcmar!patrick BITNET: patrick%crcmar@UTORGPU ARPA: dgbt@ncs-dre.arpa "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
wag@hpindda.HP.COM (William Gilliam) (09/04/88)
>After trying a couple of "fast" backup utilities (including something >called COREfast), around here we went to XCOPY because it preserves >subdirectories, makes any single file recoverable, and is highly >RELIABLE. We are running 9 AT clones with DOS 3.2. On a daily (or >.weekly) basis we run XCOPY C:\*.* A:\ /s/m/v -- this picks up the files >with the archive bit set. We have had no problems after about 6 months >of doing this. Based on your comments, I hope this continues, but I >can't recommend any "fast" backup utility. This is true. XCOPY will properly backup files in the above manner on ATs. However, you will run into problems on XTs if your level of subdirectories runs too deep (around 3 or 4 levels deep). If you just want an application to perform large and FAST (!) backups, use FASTBACK(tm). It's *very* easy to use, has a lot of features (and that's in the old version), and it never gave me an error on an XT or an AT during a year of use. It's very reliable. Now for the bad part: if you like to simply copy the program from one machine to another, you may run into a problem if the machines have some hardware differences. In this case, you may have to re-configure FASTBACK to fit the destination machine before you can use it to restore the backed-up files. WG