Re: back up

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Robert Holmgren wrote:

> > I think it is possible that an image can flunk inspection by Image
> > Explorer, yet still work at restore time.
>
> Hah! Interesting.

Yep. I may even have done this once, not having any better choice. Can't recall.


> But if PowerQuest's own image reading tool can't open the
> image created by DriveImage (and I am not the only person to spot this
> anomaly), then how pray can you rely on it?

In a perfect world (enterprise or other critical instance), you might not want to.
Then again, I never really made use of Image Explorer, so I did not have to mull
the bad news it reported.

> This is *after* DriveImage has verified the integrity of the image as A-OK at the
> DOS level!

Yeah, I always insisted on that much, and it never let me down on a Restore.

> Maybe it's just me, or my machine, whaddoIknow...

Not necessarily. It's quite possible that Image Explorer never really was ready
for prime time.

> I feel good about XCOPY,

A bit more trouble than I prefer to go to.

> and backups residing OFF the hard disk, on CDs.

So have I. Then again, this aft. I tried to burn one with RSJ (which has been a
very good program for me) but the burner went into an endless error loop. Had to
kill the app. and reboot; the cd was a beverage coaster. Not sure what's going on,
but I seem to be having some occasional, apparently heat-related problems with this
box. Something in it may have become marginal. I powered down for a couple hours,
came back and re-burned that job with no problems.

> At any time, I can do a COMPare of CD and HD, to reconfirm that my hindquarters
> are covered.

If you'd like to be able to recursively compare whole CDs (like after duping one),
I recommend Roman Stangl's freeware util. XCOMP. Slow, but does the job, and will
provide a summary report if you redirect the output to a file. This is for OS/2,
but there is a bonus ver. for Win-32.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/7885/

Jordan