I use Acronis TrueImage for anything modern enough to boot it baremetal and backup to a NAS over SMB (Windows compatible fileshares through SAMBA running on Linux).

Since I use SSDs or adapted SD cards or CF cards for everything retro I own, if I ever do end up using something old enough to not boot TrueImage, I will just image the drive in a newer machine and call it a day (I sometimes do this even if I don't have to because it can be more convenient/faster than using 100Mbps or slower Ethernet anyway).

EDIT : If someone is using actual pre-IDE hard drives AND pre-386 hardware, that person might as well look into using vintage backup solutions as well, IMHO . Or just use PKZIP on the files and then partition/format the drive and unzip when restoring .

davidrg wrote on 2022-02-19, 01:57:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-02-18, 23:20:

Burning your own ROMs for any NICs with a socket is an option though.

Yeah, thats probably what I'll have to do - trouble is finding a copy of the ROM to burn to a chip. I was looking around on ebay a week back to see if I could spot any cards I recognize with a ROM installed - then I could just image the ROM and burn some copies. ISA NICs seem to be surprisingly expensive these days though!

I noticed today that Realtek provides a boot ROM image for the RTL8019 - I'm sure I've got a pile of those somewhere so I'll probably give that a go next time I see my big box of ISA NICs.

I always thought they weren't real specific to the card, more the network stack in use, and there were novell boot ROMs and TCP/IP boot ROMs etc... There used to be a quite informative Linux Howto on Boot ROMs but it's got rolled into the Remote Boot Howto and reduced to a paragraph. Can't find an old version right now.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-02-19, 03:37:

davidrg wrote on 2022-02-19, 01:57:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-02-18, 23:20:

Burning your own ROMs for any NICs with a socket is an option though.

Yeah, thats probably what I'll have to do - trouble is finding a copy of the ROM to burn to a chip. I was looking around on ebay a week back to see if I could spot any cards I recognize with a ROM installed - then I could just image the ROM and burn some copies. ISA NICs seem to be surprisingly expensive these days though!

I noticed today that Realtek provides a boot ROM image for the RTL8019 - I'm sure I've got a pile of those somewhere so I'll probably give that a go next time I see my big box of ISA NICs.

I always thought they weren't real specific to the card, more the network stack in use, and there were novell boot ROMs and TCP/IP boot ROMs etc... There used to be a quite informative Linux Howto on Boot ROMs but it's got rolled into the Remote Boot Howto and reduced to a paragraph. Can't find an old version right now.

The ROM would need to include at least a driver for the NIC as it needs to get the card onto the network so it can find and talk to the nearest server. The boot menu for the AMD PCnet ROM looks like this:

Seems in this case Novell provided the basic firmware which AMD combined with their ODI driver somehow. I'd guess the bits to do this probably came with the ODI SDK but that seems to have escaped preservation somehow.

Right. I'm probably thinking about a time when everything was NE2000 compatible too, so generic NE2000 stuff would work in almost everything.

in a dos/win311 machines, is not enough to simply xcopy all files (even the hydden) on a second hard disk connected as a slave. Then install dos 6 on a new primary HD and xcopy again fron the slave to the new one? I missing something??

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-02-19, 06:44:

in a dos/win311 machines, is not enough to simply xcopy all files (even the hydden) on a second hard disk connected as a slave. Then install dos 6 on a new primary HD and xcopy again fron the slave to the new one? I missing something??

You are correct, it is enough. You don't even need to completely install dos again, just sys.com and copy
If you do the copy form within windows (to maintain long names) it's even enough for win 9x.

Now that I think about it, I've always kinda wondered what people were making backups from their old systems for.
I've never really made proper backups of any of my retro systems, as virtually all the data that is on these retro PCs is already backupped on a much more modern system (I download on a modern system, then send it to the retro system so the original file on the modern system is the backup).
The only things worth backupping from any of my old systems, would be save files. And I don't mind it much if those were to get lost most of the time.
In some cases I would want to make a backup of some files (like if I hex-edited some file or for instance certain saves I made for Sacred Gold after having spend some time setting things up and me wanting to have a copy of what did work) but usually a USB ZIP drive would suffice (easy enough since I ended up using ME or XP for basically anything except for my 486).
On my 486 I'd just use a floppy drive.

Once back on the modern system I'll usually put the data alongside the corresponding files (like putting the save games for Sacred Gold in the same folder as all my other downloaded Sacred Gold stuff, making it relatively easy to find it again should I ever look for it again).

I do realize that this may not be the most efficient method, most people seem to use flash cards or a network. But for me this is convenient as ZIP drive is actually part of the retro experience to me and this way I always have to use only one system at the time. Also it is inconvenient for me having to be running 2 certain systems at the same time since 1) usually multiple retro systems would need to share the same monitor, keyboard, mouse and chair in front of it, so can run only one system from there so networking between 2 systems from the same deskspace is impossible unless I physically carry systems around the house all the time and 2) since I always tend to want to use the same files on multiple systems, it's more convenient to me to save it on external media, label the media and use that media multiple times if needed. I got tons of ZIP disks so if one dies, this is really not critical to me as the ZIP disk is not the backup, it's just transfer media.
And almost forgot to mention 3) often I set up my retro systems in different parts of the house and I don't like having a bunch of network cable everywhere that I will sparingly (if ever) use.

AlessandroB wrote on 2022-02-19, 06:44:

in a dos/win311 machines, is not enough to simply xcopy all files (even the hydden) on a second hard disk connected as a slave. Then install dos 6 on a new primary HD and xcopy again fron the slave to the new one? I missing something??

Yea that would be to easy... because as soon as you come to that conclusion, you realize that IBM has been kind enough to only equip the PS/2 models that I got with one connector for their weird proprietary hard disks 😁

Also the Idea of 8-Bit ISA ethernet cards was brought up...
Was 10BaseT even a thing back then or do I have to set up a thik ethernet monstrosity in my basement just to connect a 8088-system to my server? 😁
Seems a bit ridiculous to me 😁

But thank you for all your suggestions.
The general vibe I received took a bit of fear off me and I think I just won't worry too much anymore and leave the backups out.
Doesn't seem to make much sense anyways.

It is just that I have already lost so many floppy disks due to bad sectors.. almost only 25% of all the floppy disks I read or write work properly and some last only 5-10 times and then they fail (I think they were stored in very poor conditions outside in a shed over years)
And I'm worried that at one point when all the floppy disks are gone... what's going to happen to that hobby you know?
The only way to turn these things on would be these gotek emulators... I also have one, but when I use it it's just half the fun.
I wonder if there is a market for a kickstarter that is about bringing a production run of brand new floppy disks to market 😁

You can do a short range "null modem" type hookup between two AUI media connectors to get an old NIC hooked to a new NIC if you don't wanna mess around with thin coax... but you can also find hubs with thin coax and twisted pair, to add in a coax segment to the rest of the LAN.

audiocrush wrote on 2022-02-19, 15:37:

Also the Idea of 8-Bit ISA ethernet cards was brought up...
Was 10BaseT even a thing back then or do I have to set up a thik ethernet monstrosity in my basement just to connect a 8088-system to my server? 😁
Seems a bit ridiculous to me 😁

I guess you might struggle to find an 8bit ISA network card with 10baseT but AUI ports should be relatively common. Then all you need is a 10baseT MAU/transciever to plug in. That does add to the cost a little bit though. For systems that only have 10base2 (coax) I've used an old hub with a 10base2 interface in the past though its a bit of an ugly solution. Probably a lot cheaper than finding MAUs now though - especially if you need a bunch of them.

Other options - apparently some 16bit ISA NICs will work fine in an 8bit ISA slot, some people around here could probably say which. There is also this brand-new option - currently out of stock but perhaps he will make more.

Backup? Oldstyle, conner tape drive! 😁

edit: be aware of iomega tape 250, they dissolve

McBierle wrote on 2022-02-19, 23:33:

Backup? Oldstyle, conner tape drive! 😁

edit: be aware of iomega tape 250, they dissolve

Nice! Yeah, apparently most (all?) QIC (and I presume mini QIC) drives eventually run into problems with the rubber capstan turning into goo or falling to bits. DLT, DDS and Data8 drives seem to age a bit better.

"Capstan" learned a new word. Exactly as you described...

darry wrote on 2022-02-19, 02:52:

I use Acronis TrueImage for anything modern enough to boot it baremetal and backup to a NAS over SMB (Windows compatible fileshares through SAMBA running on Linux).

Since I use SSDs or adapted SD cards or CF cards for everything retro I own, if I ever do end up using something old enough to not boot TrueImage, I will just image the drive in a newer machine and call it a day (I sometimes do this even if I don't have to because it can be more convenient/faster than using 100Mbps or slower Ethernet anyway).

EDIT : If someone is using actual pre-IDE hard drives AND pre-386 hardware, that person might as well look into using vintage backup solutions as well, IMHO . Or just use PKZIP on the files and then partition/format the drive and unzip when restoring .

Hey,

Which version of Acronis are you using ? I tried to get an old version but I've only been able to get one in weird languages.

NyLan wrote on 2022-02-21, 10:23:

darry wrote on 2022-02-19, 02:52:

I use Acronis TrueImage for anything modern enough to boot it baremetal and backup to a NAS over SMB (Windows compatible fileshares through SAMBA running on Linux).

Since I use SSDs or adapted SD cards or CF cards for everything retro I own, if I ever do end up using something old enough to not boot TrueImage, I will just image the drive in a newer machine and call it a day (I sometimes do this even if I don't have to because it can be more convenient/faster than using 100Mbps or slower Ethernet anyway).

EDIT : If someone is using actual pre-IDE hard drives AND pre-386 hardware, that person might as well look into using vintage backup solutions as well, IMHO . Or just use PKZIP on the files and then partition/format the drive and unzip when restoring .

Hey,

Which version of Acronis are you using ? I tried to get an old version but I've only been able to get one in weird languages.

The 2015 release still works on my Pentium 3 machines when booted from CD . Requirements are here (it says 1GB RAM minimum, but the Linux based bootable media seems to be happy with 512MB, probably even needs less than that, I wouldn't expect the bootable Windows PE based version to be that frugal). https://kb.acronis.com/content/48464

I use usually use a version from 2012 (v16.5551) for most of my backups and it works fine for most everything from P2 up, XP, Win 7 and Windows 10 too, but not if if using RAID -> That is a whole diff issue.
Feipoa and I played with old versions trying to back up a certain P5 system with multi partitions and boots (did not work proper, it just was not able to Image a whole disk with like 4 partitions each with diff OS and then re-create it)
But it is a great HD backup tool. If interested in testing some old versions go to archive org and search all software for Acron Media. there are bootable images, suggest ImgBurn or equal to burn the bootable to cd.
Those zips include manuals ;p

Sometimes I WinRAR the whole drive with it only bothering with files after a (relatively recent) timestamp, as that'd be saves/configs/screenshots/logs and not the mass amounts of ancient game data (often conveniently decades old). This usually is enough to get onto a thumbdrive through slow USB rather comfortably.

Horun wrote on 2022-02-22, 02:32:

I use usually use a version from 2012 (v16.5551) for most of my backups and it works fine for most everything from P2 up, XP, Wi […]
Show full quote

I use usually use a version from 2012 (v16.5551) for most of my backups and it works fine for most everything from P2 up, XP, Win 7 and Windows 10 too, but not if if using RAID -> That is a whole diff issue.
Feipoa and I played with old versions trying to back up a certain P5 system with multi partitions and boots (did not work proper, it just was not able to Image a whole disk with like 4 partitions each with diff OS and then re-create it)
But it is a great HD backup tool. If interested in testing some old versions go to archive org and search all software for Acron Media. there are bootable images, suggest ImgBurn or equal to burn the bootable to cd.
Those zips include manuals ;p

By the way, Acronis seems to have switched to a subscription only model for TrueImage (or whatever they've renamed it to). That's the end of the road for me. I might have considered a subscription if pricing was enticing, but that is not the case, IMHO . My collection of old versions will keep working for retro purposes and I will likely be switching to Clonezilla in the future .

darry wrote on 2022-02-23, 05:35:

Horun wrote on 2022-02-22, 02:32:

I use usually use a version from 2012 (v16.5551) for most of my backups and it works fine for most everything from P2 up, XP, Wi […]
Show full quote

I use usually use a version from 2012 (v16.5551) for most of my backups and it works fine for most everything from P2 up, XP, Win 7 and Windows 10 too, but not if if using RAID -> That is a whole diff issue.
Feipoa and I played with old versions trying to back up a certain P5 system with multi partitions and boots (did not work proper, it just was not able to Image a whole disk with like 4 partitions each with diff OS and then re-create it)
But it is a great HD backup tool. If interested in testing some old versions go to archive org and search all software for Acron Media. there are bootable images, suggest ImgBurn or equal to burn the bootable to cd.
Those zips include manuals ;p

By the way, Acronis seems to have switched to a subscription only model for TrueImage (or whatever they've renamed it to). That's the end of the road for me. I might have considered a subscription if pricing was enticing, but that is not the case, IMHO . My collection of old versions will keep working for retro purposes and I will likely be switching to Clonezilla in the future .

Ohh yes found that too recently and when I bought ATI 2018 that it's Rescue media only worked on the computer(s) it was installed to (limit 5 with the version I bought iirc) , it does some type of HD check for Acronis....
all my previous versions the Rescue media work just fine on any computer without Acronis ever installed to them 😁
Skipped 2016 and 2017 versions because never needed them, bought 2018 just to be nice and thought it would be wise to get a newer version until I tried the rescue media on a different computer 🙁
Yeah thanks for the hint on Clonezilla !! BTW have ATI v8 from 2004? which only needs P5 and 32MB ram but it very limited compared to ATI v11 which only needs 128Mb ram... somewhere have v10 to but cannot find it.

I just installed True Image 8 Personal on my IBM A20M to test. It creates another partition to backup images and add a "Startup utility manager". You can press F11 to launch it. Then you can recover the computer.
I read on Wiki that Version 9 is the last one to support Windows98. Later version will probably work using boot CD like Horun explained before.

I found this Version 8 Personal edition on Archive.org on a DVD Magazine but it's difficult to find version 9. And can't find any "pro" version.