Date   : Tue, 06 Mar 1990 13:21:34 GMT
From   : ea.ecn.purdue.edu!wieland@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey J Wieland)
Subject: Hard disk backup programs

Now that I have added a 30 meg hard drive to my Kaypro 2X (does that
make it a Kaypro 30?), I am wondering what do other people use to
back up their hard drives.  I have looked around on Simtel20, but I
haven't found anything that I am happy with.

I am looking for the following:

    1. Ability to save and restore the date-stamping info that ZSDOS 
       uses.
    2. Ability to backup files based on date-stamps.
    3. Ability to backup files that are larger than a floppy disk.

Something that worked kind of cpio-like should be possible.  It could
write an archive that spans many disks; each disk would contain a
single file, with a name something like:

    03-06-90.nnn

where the nnn is the disk number so that the restore program could
tell if you had put in the right disk or not.  Each file stored inside
of the archive would start with a 128 byte header that would contain
all known info about the file, e.g.:
       
    1. File name, with appropriate bits for public, R/O, etc. set.
    2. File size.
    3. Drive and user area.
    4. File creation, modification, and access times.
    5. An optional CRC to check file integrity during a restore.

Since it would be using the DOS to write the files, it should be
portable between computers, assuming that they can read the same disk
format.

It seems that I have rambled on a bit.  Well, before I try to write
something like this myself, is there some program out there that I
have missed?
--
                           Jeff Wieland
                       wieland@ecn.purdue.edu