VOGONS


First post, by RetroSpector78

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Hi,

To what extend can floppies be used to automatically copy datasets from/to hard drives that exceeds the size of the floppy thus forcing you to split the data across different floppies.

Context is an old XT class machine with an MFM drive. No Compact Flash or network.

For example : Imagine I have 10MB folder with data that I want to either get on or get off an old system and the only way to do it is floppies.

Obviously you can do it manually, but what tool can be used to facilitate the automatically spreading of that data across different disks, and merging everything back together when I want to put it on another machine, without having to manually partition the data across disks

I remember using pkzip to create multi-disk archives

PKZIP -&rp a:\data.zip c:\data
PKUNZIP -d A:\data.zip

Are there other alternatives ?

Thx

Last edited by RetroSpector78 on 2019-06-25, 16:46. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 9, by Jo22

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My father used to use PC Backup/PC Restore from Central Point Software (CP Backup)..
It could safe an entire hard drive on floppies (file based backup, not image based).

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 2 of 9, by konc

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RAR also does this nicely (it has a graphical UI so you don't have to remember/search the command line parameters and runs even on a 8088 -although you don't want to unRAR 10MB on one 🤣 ), probably other archiving utilities too

Reply 3 of 9, by Jo22

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The beautiful thing of CP Backup is (or was), however, that it creates a master disk with an information about the whole backup.
You will see from the very beginning, what's inside each folder. CP Backup also has compression and CRC check and works on XT class machines nicely.
RAR is an archiver with a sophisticated design, but also a high amount of complexity.

Edit: My father also used QIC tapes (almost VHS size, not the cheap 3" types), by the way. With SyTos software, if memory serves.
Capacity was 100 to 250 MiB, depending on the model - boy, I feel old now. 😵
´

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 4 of 9, by RetroSpector78

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konc wrote:

RAR also does this nicely (it has a graphical UI so you don't have to remember/search the command line parameters and runs even on a 8088 -although you don't want to unRAR 10MB on one 🤣 ), probably other archiving utilities too

Yes, context should be XT class machines with very little I/O (no CF module, no network card .....). Open to other suggestions. Been using a ZIP drive also to transfer stuff ... also not the fastest (using a parallel port) but gets the job done to get files to/from old PCs

Reply 5 of 9, by RetroSpector78

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Jo22 wrote:
The beautiful thing of CP Backup is (or was), however, that it creates a master disk with an information about the whole backup. […]
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The beautiful thing of CP Backup is (or was), however, that it creates a master disk with an information about the whole backup.
You will see from the very beginning, what's inside each folder. CP Backup also has compression and CRC check and works on XT class machines nicely.
RAR is an archiver with a sophisticated design, but also a high amount of complexity.
´

Is the CP Backup software a part of the PC-Tools suite ?

Reply 7 of 9, by Jo22

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RetroSpector78 wrote:
Jo22 wrote:
The beautiful thing of CP Backup is (or was), however, that it creates a master disk with an information about the whole backup. […]
Show full quote

The beautiful thing of CP Backup is (or was), however, that it creates a master disk with an information about the whole backup.
You will see from the very beginning, what's inside each folder. CP Backup also has compression and CRC check and works on XT class machines nicely.
RAR is an archiver with a sophisticated design, but also a high amount of complexity.
´

Is the CP Backup software a part of the PC-Tools suite ?

Hi, yes, it is. I've seen it in PC-Tools Deluxe 4 and 7, for example.
Older versions may also work, but PC-Tools 4 was about the first one to support FAT16 as we know it (FAT16b).
Not sure if this is important, but the disk fragmenter Compress v4 was the first one to work on my 286 running DOS 6.2 (~80MB HDD), for example.

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"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 8 of 9, by Caluser2000

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Apparently there was msbackup on the supplemental disk of MS Dos 6.0 thru 6.22 menu based but I've never used it. Sounds very much like CP Backup.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 9 of 9, by Jo22

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Caluser2000 wrote:

Apparently there was msbackup on the supplemental disk of MS Dos 6.0 thru 6.22 menu based but I've never used it. Sounds very much like CP Backup.

Yes, it was on DOS 6.x.. Microsoft licensed it from Symantec, the arch rival of Central Point Software (so to say).
IBM by contrast, licensed its stuff from Central Point Software. Visually, both software packages look also very similar.
A "System Information" (SI, SYSINFO) tool was made by both companies, for example. Symantec called its utility suite "Norton-Utlities", but also bought PC-Tools/CP in 1994.
(In the end, however, as usual, the company with the better quality product lost. -> see how Creative out-played the competition, for example.)

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"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//