Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cs.yale.edu!fischer-michael From: fischer-michael@cs.yale.edu (Michael Fischer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: VAULT problems Message-ID: <27918@cs.yale.edu> Date: 21 Dec 90 06:27:13 GMT References: Sender: news@cs.yale.edu Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158 Lines: 37 Nntp-Posting-Host: ginkgo.theory.cs.yale.edu Originator: fischer@ginkgo.CS.Yale.Edu In article larserio@ifi.uio.no writes: >I have a BIG problem with THE VAULT hard disk backup !!! >It won't work at all together with the DCACHE hard disk cache program. > >When DCACHE is installed and active VAULT works VEEERYYYY SLOOWLYYY >and when it finally is finished ALL THE BACKUP DISKS ARE BLANKS !!! I found the problem! It is with DCACHE, not The Vault. The problem has to do with the way DCACHE installs itself in the chain of rwabs handlers. Whenever DCACHE wants to call the old handler (for example, to pass through an rwabs call for a drive that it is not caching), instead of just passing control to the old handler, it temporarily reinstalls the old handler at the head of the rwabs chain and then traps (recursively) to the bios. The effect of this is to wipe out any rwabs handler that is installed after DCACHE. The Vault has its own caching scheme and installs its own rwabs handler. DCACHE immediately wipes it out, causing The Vault loses control of its cache. Files then go directly to floppy instead of to The Vault's cache. When the cache is finally flushed to disk, there is nothing there and the disk ends up empty. >NO other programs has problems with DCACHE This is not true. No program that installs an rwabs handler will work if run after DCACHE is installed. In particular, this applies to ramdisks. If the ramdisk is first in the \AUTO folder, then everything is fine, but if DCACHE is first, you'll find that the ramdisk doesn't work. I have attempted to contact the author of DCACHE to see if he can fix this problem with DCACHE. Until then, users of DCACHE should aware of the problems it can cause with other programs. -- ================================================== | Michael Fischer | ==================================================