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From: ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Ed Russell)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Re: PC-TOOLS v6.0 - Problem with PCBACKUP
Message-ID: <91035.132746ESR@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 4 Feb 91 21:27:46 GMT
References: <3997@stl.stc.co.uk>
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Lines: 40

In reply to:

>From: ndh@stl.stc.co.uk (Neale D Hind )
>Subject: PC-TOOLS v6.0 - Problem with PCBACKUP
>Date: 4 Feb 91 13:20:37 GMT
>
>I am having trouble with the PCBACKUP program supplied as part of
>PC-TOOLS v6.0.
>
>The directory does not seem to get properly written to the last disk
>when, I assume, there is insufficient space on the final disk to which
>files have been written.  Although PCBACKUP prompts for another disk
>and appears to write to it, the disk itself is totally blank when
>PCBACKUP finishes.
>
>For compare or restore, this means that the directory always needs to be
>rebuilt (a tedious task feeding in all the disks of the backup set to
>be read) before the compare/restore can commence.

I believe I saw this problem once also.  I had to go through the process of
rebuilding the index, as you mention, and writing it onto a separate disk,
(which is an option at the end of the rebuild).  I can't remember if I was
able to do an incremental backup to that set afterwards or not.  I think
I just re-did a complete backup.

I didn't explore the cause.  I just wrote it off to another of those annoying
little bugs that crops up from time to time -- similar to the one that causes
the highlighted line in PC-Shell to blink when I return from certain
applications on the menu.  I went through five iterations of trying to get
a fix for this and they could never reproduce the problem.

Re the debate on PCTools versions, I didn't use 4.3.  The first one I bought
was 5.0 and I like 6.0 better.

I have seen one other problem with version 6.0:  Once in a while, the disk
compress program reorders the order of my directories -- the directories
themselves, not the files in the directories.  I *think* this was caused by
my having empty directories on the disk but I'm not sure of that.  I have
added a dummy file to all empty directories and haven't seen it again (yet)
but I don't know if that is the solution or not.  Anyone else seen this?