schur@venera.isi.edu (Sean Schur) (12/25/89)
Recently I made a major mistake and killed my entire hard disk. I want to protect myself from making the same and similar errors in the future and I hope someone can help me. Basically, I was trying to backup my hard disk using MRBackup. I have 4 partitions on my hard disk and had completed backup on one partition and was moving to the second. Unfortunately, instead of changing the "home path" (the path to backup), which was to be DH0: (my boot partition) I changed the "backup path" (the path to write to) to DH0:. I had MRBackup set to format disks when it is going to write to them. Consequently the program started to format my hard disk and erased the rigid boot block and some of the DH0: partition before the machine froze. All was lost. My question is this: Is there some way to set a protection bit for the rigid boot block so it can't be written to? I know that one solution would be to pre-format disks so that MRBackup wouldn't try to format my hard disk erroneously. Unfortunately, I have a lot of ANIM files that are over 1MB. MRBackup requires that you have to program set to format all disks itself to split large files over more than one disk. So that is no really an option. Obviously I am planning on being much more careful in the future, but I would like to have a little added protection for those late night sessions when I'm not thinking clearly. Any suggestions? \ / \ \ / / \ \ / / \ \/ / \ /a\mpyr/ Compuserve: 70731,1102 \/ \ / ideo \/
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (12/27/89)
In <842@dsacg2.UUCP>, nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) writes: >In article <11117@venera.isi.edu>, schur@venera.isi.edu (Sean Schur) writes: >> >>I know that one solution would be to pre-format disks so that MRBackup wouldn't >> try to format my hard disk erroneously. Unfortunately, I have a lot of ANIM > >After doing somewhat the same thing (I did a format on dh0: instead of df0:) I >thought a good solution might be to hide the 'format' command under another >name and call it from a script or simple program (named 'format') that traps >the device to be formatted, checks to see if it is one of your hard disk >partitions, and either warns you or forbids you to format the undesired >partition. > >I haven't tried this yet (but have made good backups!) and would welcome any >ideas on potential problems with this setup. If you like this sort of thing, it's easy to do in ARexx. Here's a simple example. You can fiddle with it and make it as smart as you want. If you are not using WShell, you will need to change the calls to C:FORMAT to address command 'c:format' x A real paranoid would put format in another directory and perhaps under a different name, just in case some nasty trojan horse calls it. ----------------------------------- /* format - front end for the format command */ parse arg x if find('DH2: DH1: DH0:',translate(word(x,2))) > 0 then call refuse if find('FF2: FF1: FF0:',translate(word(x,2))) > 0 then call warning 'c:format' x exit refuse: say say 'Better use C:FORMAT if you really mean it!' call whew exit warning: procedure expose x say say 'Are you really sure you want to format' word(x,2) || '?' pull response if translate(response) = 'YES' then 'c:format' x else nop whew: say 'Whew! That was close. Send Larry a dollar.' ------------------------ -larry -- " All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head." - Thomas Alva Edison - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
nor1675@dsacg2.UUCP (Michael Figg) (12/28/89)
In article <11117@venera.isi.edu>, schur@venera.isi.edu (Sean Schur) writes: > >I know that one solution would be to pre-format disks so that MRBackup wouldn't > try to format my hard disk erroneously. Unfortunately, I have a lot of ANIM After doing somewhat the same thing (I did a format on dh0: instead of df0:) I thought a good solution might be to hide the 'format' command under another name and call it from a script or simple program (named 'format') that traps the device to be formatted, checks to see if it is one of your hard disk partitions, and either warns you or forbids you to format the undesired partition. I haven't tried this yet (but have made good backups!) and would welcome any ideas on potential problems with this setup. -- "Hot Damn! Groat Cakes Again | Michael Figg DSAC-FSD Heavy on the thirty weight!" | DLA Systems Automation Center - Columbus,Oh mfigg@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil
dwl10@uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) (12/29/89)
A simple way to prevent a hard disk partition from being trashed is to
use the 'lock' command (I believe it's a 1.3 command).
I assume it would prevent any accidental formats.
--
"What is another word | Dave Lowrey | [The opinions expressed MAY be
for 'Thesaurus'?" | Amdahl Corp. | those of the author and are not
| Houston, Texas | necessarily those of his
Steven Wright | amdahl!dwl10 | employer] (`nuff said!)new@udel.edu (Darren New) (01/05/90)
In article <453602AV79LT01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> dwl10@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) writes: >A simple way to prevent a hard disk partition from being trashed is to >use the 'lock' command (I believe it's a 1.3 command). > >I assume it would prevent any accidental formats. Sorry, dude. This does not seem to cut it. I tried this when I first got my hard drive and was dismayed that format merrily trashed the couple of files I had on the hard disk. I think the lock command talks to the file system and the format command talks to the trackdisk.device (or whatever is under the filesystem). DON'T USE THE LOCK COMMAND TO SECURE FROM FORMATTING! -- Darren