Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!decwrl!shlump.nac.dec.com!hpstek!simon
From: simon@hpstek.dec.com (Curiosier and curiosier...)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Tape backup help needed
Message-ID: <8432@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Date: 17 Feb 90 02:37:37 GMT
Sender: newsdaemon@shlump.nac.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 76


    COMM -- KERMIT
    	 |- ZMODEM

    it looked

    COMM -- KERMIT
    	 |- ZMODEM -- KERMIT
    		   |- ZMODEM -- KERMIT
    			     |- ZMODEM --  etc., as far as I could reach.

    To clean the mess first I deleted files in only one of the KERMIT's 
    (the first one) and deleted this one subdirectory.  The tree started to 
    look like this:

    COMM -- ZMODEM -- ZMODEM -- ZMODEM --  etc., endless.   

    Even though I deleted only one KERMIT, all of them dissapeared!  OK, I 
    decided to get to the end of the line to delete the ZMODEM files and 
    then remove the directories, all of them, but got only so far.  Now 
    I got a real problem.  After a certain number of

    cd ZMODEM

    it returned "invalid directory" error message.  I tried to use Norton's
    Change Directory (NCD).  It showed

    ZMODEM -> ZMODEM -> ZMODEM -> 

    to the end of the screen.  All attempts to get the cursor on the 
    picture to the end of this line ended in a system crash.

    I tried NU - Norton Utilities.  At the option of Choose Item the
    picture of the directory tree showed only one ZMODEM, as it supposed to
    be.  Returning back to NCD or DOS directory, they are still there.

    How can I get rid of all these empty directories?  I do not know how
    many of them there are, know only that each takes a 2K of the disk
    space.  What tool should I use?  Any ideas?  Any help will be
    appreciated.

    For the reasons below I know that the problem is in the content (or 
    structure) of KERMIT or ZMODEM directories.  This is what I did so 
    far in an attempt to pinpoint the cause:

    1.	Checked if it is NOT a restore problem.  I did restore from the 
    same tape on a newly formatted disk again, with the same result.

    2.	Checked if it is NOT a tape problem.  I erased everything from the
    tape and a new drive and ran the whole backup routine from scratch. 
    The same result.

    3.	Quit using tape and used FASTBACK on floppies.  Restored to the new
    drive without a glitch.  Evidently the problem lies with the tape
    (drive) handling of the data.

    4.	To make sure of the 3 above, I ran a tape backup of the newly
    restored disk (by FASTBACK) and restored everything into another 
    partition of the same physical drive.  The !@#$%^&*() subdirectories 
    are again there!

    Before restoring I set an option NOT to restore subdirectories of
    ZMODEM.  It didn't help.

    I am afraid of using the tape drive for the back-ups until I find out 
    what was happening.

    Regards,

---
Leo Simon	simon@hpstek.enet.dec.com
		--or-- ...!decwrl!hpstek.enet.dec.com!simon
		--or-- simon%hpstek.enet.dec@decwrl.dec.com

Who is not liberal when young, doesn't have a heart.
Who is not conservative when old, doesn't have a brain.