Backups made with the Backup and Restore window are the easiest to make and use, and are accessible from the Recover System option on the System Maintenance Menu if they are full system backups. When you make a full system backup, the command also makes a backup of the files in the disk volume header and saves the information in a file that is stored on tape. This file is used during system recovery to restore a damaged volume header.
To make a backup of your system using an IRIX command, use the Backup(1) command. Although the Backup command is a front-end interface to the bru(1) command, Backup also writes the disk volume header on the tape so that the Recover System option can reconstruct the boot blocks, which are not written to the tape using other backup commands. For more information, see the section "Backup and Restore".