bmaraldo@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Commander Brett Maraldo) (02/27/90)
What a wonderful set of back-up programs! I am refering to the
recently posted Vault and Key programs. The Vault workes wonderfully,
packing diskettes completely. The Key, ont he other had, didn't work all
that well. The first time I tried to unpack my 'vualted' disks the hard
drive sat there cratching in the middle of my C:\TEX\TFM folder. I tried
again it there wern't any errors but the C:\TEX folder was not there
even though The Key said it wrote the relevant files. I did a 'Show Info'
on C:\ and it acknowledged the space that should have been used up
by C:\TEX (about 5 meg was missing!). So had to zero the drive and
manual load the files, sigh! I'll try another back-up and see if it works,
but I'll be damned if I am going to trust The Key to unpack my files (to
test a full back-up I had to zero my C:\ partition; if The Key is indeed
buggy then I'll have to spend hours again reloaded the drive manually).
Brett L Maraldo
--
-------- Unit 36 Research ---------
"Alien Technology Today"
bmaraldo@watserv1.UWaterloo.ca
{uunet!clyde!utai}!watserv1!bmaraldofischer-michael@CS.YALE.EDU (Michael Fischer) (02/28/90)
In article <1254@watserv1.waterloo.edu > bmaraldo@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Commander Brett Maraldo) writes: > > What a wonderful set of back-up programs! I am refering to the >recently posted Vault and Key programs. The Vault workes wonderfully, >packing diskettes completely. The Key, ont he other had, didn't work all >that well. The first time I tried to unpack my 'vualted' disks the hard >drive sat there cratching in the middle of my C:\TEX\TFM folder. I tried >again it there wern't any errors but the C:\TEX folder was not there >even though The Key said it wrote the relevant files. I did a 'Show Info' >on C:\ and it acknowledged the space that should have been used up >by C:\TEX (about 5 meg was missing!). So had to zero the drive and >manual load the files, sigh! I'll try another back-up and see if it works, >but I'll be damned if I am going to trust The Key to unpack my files (to >test a full back-up I had to zero my C:\ partition; if The Key is indeed >buggy then I'll have to spend hours again reloaded the drive manually). Sorry you had problems with The Key, but I can't imagine anything The Key is doing that could cause the problems you describe. The Key doesn't do any fancy buffering like The Vault does. It is basically just a file copy program that uses the standard GEMDOS calls to create the files. The only thing special that it does is to look for long files that The Vault has split into pieces and put them back together again. I can think of one possible explanation for your problems, assuming you are still running TOS 1.0 or 1.2---the so-called "40-folder bug". What happens in the old TOS is that every time a folder is "touched", some memory is allocated from an internal memory pool and never released (until the disk is ejected, in the case of a floppy). A folder is touched when you display it contents or search through it (or possibly even when you display its name -- I'm not sure about that). In any case, the internal pool is only large enough to safely accommodate 40 folders. When the pool is exhausted, the old TOS doesn't report an "out-of-memory" error but begins overwriting other memory, which leads to all sorts of weird errors, including trashing your disk. Using FOLDRXXX.PRG increases the size of the memory pool but does not fix the bug. Thus, FOLDR100.PRG adds memory for 100 folders, so now the problem may strike after you have touched 140 folders. Even if you do not normally run into this bug, you are likely to encounter it when rebuilding your hard disk, because that is one time when you touch every folder on the disk, and even worse, you are also touching a lot of copies of those folders on the backup disks. I recall similar things happening to me a few years ago before I had TOS 1.4 when I tried to rebuild my hard disk. The "cure" is to rebuild the disk a piece at a time and reboot after each piece. Also, be sure to run FOLDRXXX.PRG with a large value for XXX each time you reboot. With these precautions, you should be able to rebuild your disk successfully. The same applies whether you use The Key or do it manually---the problem is in the old TOS, not with The Key. By the way, I vaguely recall that one of the manifestations of the 40-folder bug is that files or folders would seem to disappear but would reappear when the machine was rebooted. Thus, if you do encounter such problems again, it is probably worthwhile rebooting your machine to see if the files come back before zeroing your hard disk and starting all over again. Please let me know if you continue to have problems with The Key even with these precautions. ================================================== | Michael Fischer | | Arpanet: <fischer-michael@cs.yale.edu> | | Bitnet: <fischer-michael@yalecs.bitnet> | | UUCP: <fischer-michael@yale.UUCP> | ==================================================
jg@hpldola.HP.COM (Joe Gilray) (03/01/90)
Brett, Thanks for your review of VAULT and KEY. Please let us know if you get KEY to work and how you do it. Thanx! -Joe Gilray
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (03/04/90)
Regarding the "Vault and Key" hard drive backup system.. I just used the Vault to back up my 20Meg hard drive, and later restore it.. No problems at all... I particularly liked the fact that it ran well with only 512K, and that it does "incremental" backups between Full backups. The only problem with the "Key" was that I had to remember to specify the main folder that all the other files and folders were in on the backup disks, or I'd get one large folder called "FEBC" (Feburary backup of C:) on the hard drive... not a problem with the "Key" program really, just my having to remember how to run it... BobR