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1 Diskpack Version 2.0 User's Guide Represented in the U.K. by Biologic Company The Thompson Partnership 7950 Blue Gray Circle 10, Church Croft, Manassas, VA 22110-2829 Bramshall, 703-368-2949 UTTOXETER, Staffs. ST14 5DE 0889 564601 2 Diskpack Copyright and License Agreement 3 Introduction 5 Installation 7 Quick Start 9 Using Diskpack 11 Using dRestore 16 Notes 20 Site License 21 Your Turn 22 Copyright License agreement Disclaimer of warranty Copyright This Diskpack documentation and the software are copyrighted with all rights reserved. Under the copyright laws, neither the documentation nor the software may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine-readable form, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Biologic Company, except in the manner described in this manual. The unregistered version of Diskpack and accompanying documentation may be freely copied and distributed. Copyright (C) Biologic Company 1987,1988. 7950 Blue Gray Circle, Manassas, VA 22110 USA All rights reserved. First edition printed 1987. Printed in the United States. License agreement The terms of this license agreement apply to you and to any subsequent licensee of this Diskpack software. Biologic Company retains the ownership of this copy of Diskpack software. This copy is licensed to you for use under the following conditions. o You may use the Diskpack software on any compatible computer, provided the Diskpack software is used on only one computer and by one user at a time. o You may not provide use of the software in a computer service business, network, timesharing, multiple CPU or multiple user arrangement to users who are not 4 individually licensed by Biologic Company, except that you may designate any employee to use such products on a one employee per license basis. Disclaimer of warranty Biologic company excludes any and all implied warranties, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Biologic does not make any warranty of representation, either express or implied, with respect to this software program, its quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose. Biologic shall not have any liability for special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of or resulting from the use of this program. 5 Introduction Description Advantages of Diskpack File compression Contents of the Diskpack disk Requirements Description Diskpack and dRestore are general purpose file backup utility programs designed to replace the DOS Backup and Restore commands. You can use Diskpack to back up files from a hard disk or a diskette to diskettes or any other DOS storage device (including tape). Files are compressed as they are copied so that they occupy less disk space on the backup disks than on the source disk. dRestore uncompresses and copies files from the backup disks. You can also use dRestore to perform a file by file comparison of the backup disks with the source disk. Advantages of Diskpack o Diskpack is much faster than the DOS Backup command. On an IBM AT, Diskpack backs up 10 Megabytes of data in about 4 minutes. o Diskpack compresses files up to 80%. This means you can back up a 20 Megabyte hard disk onto 4 floppies. Diskpack compresses files more efficiently than the "other" backup program, and does it faster. The "other" program has a compression mode that runs slower than its non-compression mode and only compresses about 25%. Diskpack compresses files without sacrificing speed. 6 o Diskpack is more reliable. It uses DOS to write files to your backup disks. All other fast backup programs bypass DOS and take direct control of your machine- a practice that is generally considered risky. That's why they don't work with some IBM clones or non-standard disk drives. You can use Diskpack on all IBM and compatible PCs and back up files to any DOS device (including tape). File compression Diskpack uses a very fast proprietary file compression method. The amount of compression is dependent on file type- about 80% for database files, 60% for word processing and worksheet files, and 25% for executable files. Files which can be compressed the most will be backed up the fastest. Contents of the Diskpack disk The following files are included in the root directory of the distribution disk. diskpack.exe diskpack.hlp drestore.exe drestore.hlp There may also be a \FREEWARE directory which contains unregistered versions of our other software products. Requirements o An IBM Personal Computer (PC, PC/XT, PC/AT, PS/2) (or compatible). o IBM Personal Computer Disk Operating System (DOS) version 2.0 or greater (or compatible). o Minimum 320K of conventional memory. Additional memory will increase performance. 7 Installation Procedure Notes To install Diskpack, create a new directory \DISKPACK on your hard disk and copy the files in the root directory of the distribution disk to it. Procedure 1. Create a directory for the Diskpack files with the command md \diskpack 2. Put your distribution disk in drive A and type copy a:\*.* c:\diskpack 3. Modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to include the \DISKPACK directory in your PATH command. This allows you to access the Diskpack program from any current directory. For example, path c:\;c:\diskpack Notes o Your \CONFIG.SYS file should contain a BUFFERS statement allocating at least 16 disk buffers. This will maximize the performance of your computer, not just Diskpack. For example, buffers=16 8 o The DOS VERIFY flag significantly increases backup time. If you have a VERIFY ON statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you should set VERIFY to OFF before using Diskpack. With VERIFY ON, DOS performs an operation following each disk write to verify that the data just written can be read without error- it does not verify that the data is the same data read from your hard disk. If you really want to be safe, use dRestore to perform a file by file comparison of your backups with your hard disk. o The first time you back up your hard disk, you must use dRestore to perform a comparison of it with your backup disks to ensure that Diskpack is compatible with your system. 9 Quick Start Backing up files Comparing files Restoring files Notes Backing up files To back up all of the files on your hard disk, follow these steps. 1. You should have some formatted disks ready to use as backup disks. 2. Type verify off 3. If Diskpack is on your hard disk, make the directory containing the Diskpack program, DISKPACK.EXE, the current directory. 4. If Diskpack is on a floppy disk, put it in drive A and make drive A the current drive. 5. Type diskpack c:\*.* a:/s/v Comparing files To compare the files on your hard disk with your backup disks, follow this procedure. 1. If Diskpack is on your hard disk, make the directory containing the dRestore program, DRESTORE.EXE, the current directory. 2. If Diskpack is on a floppy disk, put it in drive A and make drive A the current directory. 3. Type drestore a: c:\*.*/s/v 10 Restoring files To restore the files on your backup disks to your hard disk, follow these steps. 1. If Diskpack is on your hard disk, make the directory containing the dRestore program, DRESTORE.EXE, the current directory. 2. If Diskpack is on a floppy disk, put it in drive A and make drive A the current directory. 3. Type drestore a: c:\*.*/s/v/r Notes Don't restore files unless you have verified that Diskpack is compatible with your system by performing a complete backup and compare. 11 Using Diskpack Format Options Notes Examples Format The format of the Diskpack command is [d:][path]DISKPACK [d:][path]filename[.ext] d: [options] where [d:][path] before DISKPACK specifies the drive and path that contains the Diskpack program. [d:][path] after DISKPACK specifies the drive and path that contain the file(s) you want to back up (source). filename[.ext] specifies the file(s) you want to back up. Global file name characters are allowed in the file name, and cause all of the files matching the file name to be backed up. d: specifies the drive that will contain the backed up files (target). [options] specifies optional parameters described below. Options The following options can appear in the Diskpack command. 12 /? Display help. /1 Do not prompt to insert the first backup disk. /A Do not change the archive bit of each file copied. Without this option, Diskpack clears the archive bit of each file it backs up. When cleared, the archive bit indicates that a file has not been changed since it was backed up. Whenever DOS writes to a file, it sets the archive bit to mark it as changed. Normally, you should omit this option so that /M can be used to back up files that have been modified since the last backup. /B Beep when prompted to insert a disk. /C[[d:][path]filename[.ext]] Create a catalog file containing a list of all the files backed up. You can specify the name of the catalog file (and a drive and path). If you don't, the file DISKPACK.CAT will be created in the current directory. You cannot put the catalog file on the backup disk. The catalog file is a DOS text file and can be viewed using a text editor or displayed on the screen with the DOS TYPE command. type diskpack.cat /Dmm-dd-yy Back up files that have been modified on or after the specified date. The format of the date specified must be mm-dd-yy. 13 /H Include hidden files. This will cause all files marked as hidden to be included on the backup disks. If you're backing up the root directory, the DOS hidden files IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM will be copied. You can avoid restoring these files to a system using a different version of DOS with the dRestore /P1 option. /I Display registration information (unregistered version only). /M Back up files that have been modified since the last backup. A file has been modified if its archive bit is set (see option /A). /P Display a (y/n)? prompt before copying each file. You can choose to back up the file or not. /S Back up subdirectory files in addition to the files in the specified or current directory. /V Display a verbose description of the back up process. /W Prompt the user to press a key before reading source file(s). Notes o Press Ctrl-Break to stop Diskpack. 14 o New disks must be formatted with the DOS FORMAT command. o You can't back up to a hard disk. o Files are backed up from the current directory if you do not specify a path. o Files are compressed as they are copied. o You can't use the DIR command on backup disks. To get a list of files, display the catalog file or use the dRestore /D option. o You can't use the COPY command to copy files contained on backup disks. o Use high quality disks. o Do not use disks with bad sectors as backup disks. Diskpack will check the File Allocation Table of each disk and reject those that have clusters marked as bad. o Diskpack erases files already present on the backup disks. Examples The following example backs up all the files from disk drive C to drive A. diskpack c:\*.* a:/s The following example backs up the file FILE.TXT from drive C to drive A. A verbose description of the backup process is displayed. diskpack c:file.txt a:/v 15 The following example backs up all files from drive C that have been modified since the date 01-01-88 to drive A. diskpack c:\*.* a:/s/d01-01-88 The following example backs up all files from drive C to drive A that have been modified since the last backup. diskpack c:\*.* a:/s/m The following example backs up all files in the current directory to drive A and creates catalog file DISKPACK.CAT in the current directory. diskpack *.* a:/c The following example backs up all files with an extension WK1 in directory \123 and all subdirectories of \123 to drive A. diskpack \123\*.wk1 a:/s 16 Using dRestore Format Options Notes Examples Format The format of the dRestore command is [d:][path]DRESTORE d: [d:][path]filename[.ext] [options] where [d:][path] before DRESTORE specifies the drive and path that contain the dRestore program. d: specifies the drive that contains the backed up files (source). [d:][path]filename[.ext] specifies the file(s) you want to restore and where you want to restore them (target). Global file name characters are allowed in the file name, and cause all of the files matching the file name to be restored. The files must be restored to the same directory they were in when Diskpack copied them. [options] specifies the optional parameters described below. Options The following options can appear in the dRestore command. /? 17 Display help. /1 Do not prompt to insert the first backup disk. /B Beep when prompted to insert a disk. /D Display file names only. This operation takes as long as restoring files, since dRestore must uncompress the data on the backup disks to obtain the file names. If you created a catalog file when backing up, it's faster to display its contents with the DOS TYPE command. type diskpack.cat /I Display registration information (unregistered version only). /P1 Display a (y/n)? prompt before restoring a file if it is hidden or has been changed since it was last backed up. You can choose to restore the file or not. /P2 Display a (y/n)? prompt before restoring each file. You can choose to restore the file or not. /R Restore files. If /R is omitted, dRestore will compare the files on the backup disks with the target disk- not restore them. /S 18 Restore subdirectory files in addition to the files in the specified or current directory. /V Display a verbose description of the restore process. Notes o Press Ctrl-Break to stop dRestore. o The files being restored must have been placed on the source with Diskpack. o dRestore isn't as fast as Diskpack. Diskpack's compression method was developed to be as fast as possible even though some of the techniques used to increase compression speed actually decrease the speed of uncompression. This is a good tradeoff since Diskpack is used more frequently than dRestore. o You don't have to start with disk 1 when restoring files. If you want to restore a single file from a set of backups, start with the backup disk that contains the file (the catalog lists each file and its disk number). If dRestore doesn't find the file, try starting with the previous disk. o Before formatting your hard disk, you should back it up completely, compare the backup disks with your hard disk to be sure you have a good copy, and back it up again on another set of disks. o dRestore will automatically create directories on the target disk if they don't already exist. Examples The following example compares the files on the backup disks in drive A with the files on drive C. The files 19 are not restored. drestore a: c:\*.*/s The following example restores all files on the backup disks from drive A to drive C. drestore a: c:\*.*/s/r The following example restores the file FILE.TXT from drive A to drive C. A verbose description of the restore process is displayed. drestore a: c:file.txt/r/v The following example restores all files from drive A that were backed up from the current directory and prompts the user before restoring each file. drestore a: *.*/p2/r The following example restores all files from drive A with the extension WK1 that were backed up from the directory \123 and all subdirectories of \123. drestore a: \123\*.wk1/s/r 20 Notes o You must reformat backup disks if you wish to use them for another purpose. o The red light on the disk drive will remain on during disk changes. It does not harm the disk or drive to open the drive door when the light is on. 21 Site License Diskpack can be licensed on a per location basis which allows a company to use it on a network or use multiple copies of Diskpack without purchasing them individually. Pricing is dependent on the number of copies and is very reasonable. Please contact Biologic for further information. 22 Your Turn We value you opinions. Please let us know what you like and dislike about the Diskpack program and documentation. We're dedicated to developing the most innovative and useful software available- and selling it at reasonable prices. Your support helps make this possible. Please send all comments and suggestions to either Biologic Company The Thompson Partnership P.O. Box 1276 10, Church Croft, Manassas, VA 22110 Bramshall, USA UTTOXETER, Staffs ST14 5DE 0889 564601 THANK YOU.