Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!purdue!bu-cs!bloom-beacon!oberon!ucla-cs!wales From: wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: FASTBACK PLUS Keywords: backup Message-ID: <21965@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Date: 18 Mar 89 03:40:36 GMT References: <441@nvuxk.UUCP> Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU Reply-To: wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) Organization: UCLA CS Department, Los Angeles Lines: 54 I would have preferred to e-mail this comment, but I couldn't find a reasonable return address for the sender ("nvuxk" doesn't appear to be in the maps, and he didn't include a signature with any path hints). So, here goes with a followup posting. In article <441@nvuxk.UUCP> fleming@nvuxk.UUCP (George W. Fleming) writes: When I purchased a copy of FASTBACK PLUS (Version 2.0 I believe) few months ago and tried to use it, I came across an interesting phenomenon... Doing a backup on my IBM PS/2 Model 70-121 with 3 1/2 inch floppies, I noticed that the first floppy always gets done real fast. After that, every floppy always gets reformated for some reason (even though the floppy was already formated). This happens no matter how I rearrange the disks (the first is always fast, the succeeding ones are always slow because they have to be formatted). I have used FASTBACK PLUS v2.01 for some time and have never seen this problem. I have a Taiwanese "turbo" XT clone (100% IBM-compatible) with a 32-meg hard disk, and I dump to a 3.5"/1.44-meg diskette drive. FASTBACK PLUS passes the "high DMA" test on my system, using this high- density drive, with the CPU clock running at "turbo" speed (8 MHz). I use the highest command level ("advanced"), with maximum compression ("save disks"). I can check my other configuration options and compare them with the ones George uses, if he will get in touch with me via e-mail. When I use preformatted disks with FASTBACK PLUS, the program always accepts them and doesn't try to reformat them. I also had some other strange problems with this program (it rewrote the a disk before I had a chance to put a new one in, some binary error I don't remember the details of, etc.). I've never seen this problem on my system. FASTBACK PLUS always waits for me to put in the next disk. A while back I seem to have noticed someone posting an article about problems using it on a PS/2 Model 50Z. Is this a related problem? Any insight would be welcomed. Well, of course, if George's problem stems from some strangeness with the PS/2, my experience with an XT-clone would not be relevant. Again, though, I'll be glad to discuss this issue at more length via e-mail, if George will contact me with a reasonable return path. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales "Now, drop your weapons, or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."