moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) (11/25/86)
This is an article posted out of hope: hope for a solution, hope for advice,
hope for confirmation of the same problem elsewhere, and hope for knowledge
distributed. No, it's not dealing with religion, it's dealing with hard
disk backups, and folks, I'm getting tired.
I've been using HFS Backup 1.1 for some time now, and while at first
enthusiastic, I'm getting pretty tired of it these days. While it is
usually reliable on backup, it's ability to restore individual files off of
incremental backups is extremely poor. For example: My first entire backup
takes up 18 disks. A copy of the Backup Directory is placed on disk #1 and
disk #18. I do an incremental backup four weeks later, which takes up disks
#19 to #23; a new directory of the current user disk is saved on disks #1
(overwriting the old one) and #23 (the initial directory, remember, is still
on disk #18).
I decide that I want to restore some files that were on the disk during the
initial backup (#1-18), but not in the later incremental backup. I copy
Disk #1 to a temporary Disk #1, and then copy the first Backup Directory
from Disk #18 to the temporary Disk #1, and change the name of the directory
to indicate it is not a copy. This, according to the documentation, should
allow me to back up things from the initial backup. I start up HFS BACKUP
and choose restore selected files. Plug in the temp Disk #1. Directory
comes up just as I wanted it! Great! Pick some files to restore. All set?
Press OK. And... nothing happens. It returns to the initial state.
I end up having to find the initial files on the various disks with the
RESTORE utility HFS distributed over the net and bring them back manually.
This is a royal pain-in-the-ass.
According to articles on Delphi, an HFS Backup 2.0 is coming out, but the
only things I hear that are improved are speed and a RESTORE utility built
into the software. I'd like to see the RESTORE work properly, thanks. No
idea if there is a free upgrade for registered users.
So, last night, decided to use SuperBackup from Dataframe (my HD is a
Dataframe 20); read the documentation, and it looks very good -- better
features than HFS Backup. And I try to backup about 18 Megs on a Mac+. And
I get bomb errors (once about halfway, once about 9/10 of the way) through
the backup. Wanta talk about frustration?
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My questions:
1) Anyone seen these problems before, with either of these products?
2) Anyone know how to fix the HFS Backup problem through any ritual
known to man?
3) Anyone have a recommendation for a better product that can do hard
disk backups to floppies with incremental and specific file backup
AND RESTORE?
4) Anyone know if HFS Backup 2.0 will be free to registered users? I
hear it's supposed to be out Dec. 1st (like, now).
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And once again, we thank you for your support.
"This is no time to act like a gentleman. I am a
cad and shall react like one."
-- George Sanders
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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