TS0026@OHSTVMA.IRCC.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Mike Fidler) (09/26/90)
Unfortunately, my experience with the Michtron tools has been poor. Not all bad mind you but bad enough that I don't trust them any more. I had trouble with all forms of their backups indicating a bad sector on my hard disk while writing to floppy during backs. Since nothing indicated any trouble with the hard disk, I called for consultation. The guy I talk to told me everything that was wrong with everyone else's programs but was ABSOLUTELY no help with my problem. He even got off on the IBM/PC tool (PC Tools Deluxe) and how their disk compress (on PCs mind you) would destroy directories, etc (it doesn't EVER is my experience). In any case, the problem I finally found was an allignment problem in my FLOPPY drive. That guy didn't know anything, as far as I am concerned and the error msg was JUNK. It was a totally wasted phone call. :-( Now, in fact, I can and have successfully done both file level and TAR backups (and restores) with UI II loaded (so much for the claim that it is the problem!) I now only use the tools under highly-backed-up conditions. It is the only "compressor" that seems to work well. I don't like the fact that it doesn't really tell you what it is doing or what it has done. I like "pictures", if it displayed a map of the sectors of the disk and showed me what it did, maybe I would be happier. In any case, use disk compression tools CAREFULLY. They can be abused! I recently bought DimondBack II and intend to use it for backups. - Mike fidler mlf+@osu.edu