celozzi@tron.UUCP (Dominic J Celozzi) (02/05/88)
Someone I work with was complaining that Back-ups using MS-DOS 3.2 are not compatable with those using MS-DOS 3.3? That is, if someone updated to MS-DOS 3.3, then all the backups done under the old version would be worthless! Is this actually true?? I asked him again to ensure I wasn't misinterpretting what was being said. If anyone has similar experience or knows this to be false, please respond. Also, if this is true and anyone knows of a patch for it ... by all means respond!! Thanks in advance, Dominic Celozzi UUCP-Path: uunet!umbc3!tron!celozzi
john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) (02/07/88)
In article <102@tron.UUCP>, celozzi@tron.UUCP (Dominic J Celozzi) writes: > Someone I work with was complaining that Back-ups using MS-DOS 3.2 are not > compatable with those using MS-DOS 3.3? That is, if someone updated to This appears to be true. I know it's different than 3.1. I have been running 3.3 for almost a year now and recently gave a freind a LARGE file that I had put on several floppies with DOS backup. He could not restore it. It appears (and Im no DOS wizard), that in 3.3, the entire backup is on one filename. Everything is compacted in one file. On 3.1/3.2 I beleive the files at least showed individual file names when you did a DIR although you could not "copy" them. This should really pose a problem. Supposing you "update" your system to 3.3 and then re-do a backup and your all set. John -- John Gayman, WA3WBU | UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!john 1869 Valley Rd. | ARPA: wa3wbu!john@uunet.UU.NET Marysville, PA 17053 | Packet: WA3WBU @ AK3P
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (02/08/88)
In article <102@tron.UUCP> celozzi@tron.UUCP (Dominic J Celozzi) writes: >Someone I work with was complaining that Back-ups using MS-DOS 3.2 are not >compatable with those using MS-DOS 3.3? That is, if someone updated to >MS-DOS 3.3, then all the backups done under the old version would be >worthless! Is this actually true?? I asked him again to ensure I wasn't >misinterpretting what was being said. If anyone has similar experience or >knows this to be false, please respond. Also, if this is true and anyone >knows of a patch for it ... by all means respond!! This is not only true between DOS's 3.2 and 3.3, but between all version of MS-DOS BACKUP/RESTORE. How to overcome this problem: You'd think that you could just use the RESTORE from the machine that you did the BACKUP on, but this won't usually work. The silly software verifies the DOS version and won't run, even though the DOS version is irrelevant. The easy way: boot the DOS version that the BACKUP was done under from floppy and use that DOS's RESTORE. The best way: throw away the MS-DOS BACKUP/RESTORE and buy a new utility. The MS-DOS backup utilities are disgraceful. They are slow, cumbersome, non-portable, and unreliable. There are a lot of PD and commercial backup programs out there. Of all of them I've seen, none are as bad as those provided with MS-DOS. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu
lotto@wjh12.harvard.edu (Jerry Lotto) (02/08/88)
In article <19756@bu-cs.BU.EDU> madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost) writes: >In article <102@tron.UUCP> celozzi@tron.UUCP (Dominic J Celozzi) writes: >>Someone I work with was complaining that Back-ups using MS-DOS 3.2 are not >>compatable with those using MS-DOS 3.3? That is, if someone updated to >utility. The MS-DOS backup utilities are disgraceful. They are slow, >cumbersome, non-portable, and unreliable. There are a lot of PD and No kidding! I just used DOS 3.3 backup for the first time. It got about 75% of the way along my hard disk and (1.5 hours later) aborted w/ "Insufficient memory". I had a rather large TSR, and (knowing better) removed it and ran backup again. Same problem, same place. Then I try spanning just the failed directory -> bomb. It apparently cannot deal with the directory hierarchy (not a particularly bad one, it dies at a directory \usr\help that contains 128 entries: 1 file of 0 length, . and .. and 125 directories.) Trying to backup d:\usr\help\*.* a: /s just returns w/o selecting anything, even though there are a couple of files in each of the 125 directories. strike match... What an incredible botch job! IBM is bragging that as of DOS 3.2 they wrote this thing! blow it out. Anyway, enough flame. I want to reverse engineer the dos backup and restore programs. The PD stuff out there is good, but I want to be able to make backups that can be read from a vanilla DOS distribution. Before I embark on this trip, does anyone already know the format of the 3.3 backup and restore files? Has anyone tried this yet? Are there any (valid) copyright protections on the format of backup files? E-mail responses to me directly, please. Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the opinions (expressed herein) and those of any individual or organization, real or imagined, is totally coincidental. Nobody is responsible for this note. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corp. "\" probably is too. -- Gerald Lotto - Harvard Chemistry Dept. UUCP: {seismo,harpo,ihnp4,linus,allegra,ut-sally}!harvard!lotto ARPA: lotto@harvard.harvard.edu
murillo@sigi.Colorado.EDU (Rodrigo Murillo) (02/08/88)
>>Someone I work with was complaining that Back-ups using MS-DOS 3.2 are not >>compatable with those using MS-DOS 3.3? That is, if someone updated to >>MS-DOS 3.3, then all the backups done under the old version would be >>worthless! Is this actually true?? I asked him again to ensure I wasn't >This is not only true between DOS's 3.2 and 3.3, but between all >version of MS-DOS BACKUP/RESTORE. >The easy way: boot the DOS version that the BACKUP was done under >from floppy and use that DOS's RESTORE. The above is true and the suggested solution does work. But your old backups are not worthless as long as you RESTORE with the proper version. The best solution for all this is to make sure that all your PCs are upgraded to the same version of DOS, and when you do upgrades, do ALL the machines. Also, if you ever ship a set of BACKUPed disks to someone, send along a DOS bootable system disk with copies of BACKUP/RESTORE from the system you got the BACKUPs from. This way they can RESTORE regardless of what they run. Just make sure *they* are aware of the potential incompatabilities between DOS version. -- ------------ Rodrigo Murillo, UC - Boulder (303)761-0410 ------------ murillo@boulder.Colorado.EDU -or- ..{hao|nbires}!boulder!murillo (Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Worhol)
leefi@microsoft.UUCP (Lee Fisher) (02/08/88)
In article <102@tron.UUCP>, celozzi@tron.UUCP (Dominic J Celozzi) writes: > > Someone I work with was complaining that Back-ups using MS-DOS 3.2 > aren't compatable with those using MS-DOS 3.3? That is, if someone > updated to MS-DOS 3.3, then all the backups done under the old > version would be worthless! Is this actually true?? The file format for BACKUP files in DOS v3.3 is different than with previous versions of BACKUP. (It is supposedly a more efficient and stable storage method.) However, the DOS v3.3 RESTORE command will read the file format of previous DOS versions, and thus will be able to restore files backed up using older versions of BACKUP. So, upward compatibility is there, but not backward compatibility. -Lee ________ 01001100 Lee Fisher, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA. 01000101 {uw-beaver,decvax,decwrl,trsvax,sun,attunix,uunet}!microsof!leefi 01000101 leefi@microsof.uucp 01000110 leefi@microsof.beaver.washington.edu 01001001 disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not those of my employer.
akk2@ur-tut.UUCP (Atul Kacker) (02/10/88)
In article <4195@sigi.Colorado.EDU> murillo@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Rodrigo Murillo) writes: > >Also, if you ever ship a set of BACKUPed disks to someone, send along a DOS >bootable system disk with copies of BACKUP/RESTORE from the system you got >the BACKUPs from. This way they can RESTORE regardless of what they run. This is true, but it is also illegal. You can't just give someone portions of DOS (BACKUP/RESTORE). They have to have legal copies of the version of DOS that you used to BACKUP in the first place. On the same lines, is it possible to patch the BACKUP/ RESTORE files so that it doesn't check for version numbers ? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Atul Kacker | Internet: akk2@tut.cc.rochester.edu | UUCP: {ames,cmcl2,decvax,rutgers}!rochester!ur-tut!akk2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------