Author Topic: What is the best CD Based imaging software  (Read 7937 times)

Denzil1977

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What is the best CD Based imaging software
« on: December 15, 2015, 02:00:26 pm »
Hi

I used to use Acronis home backup software to make images of my machines which worked fine on os2. We have know upgraded our systems to Ecomstation they back up ok but have mixed results when restoring a image. Can anyone recommend an Imaging software which can run of a cd that works with ECS and the JFS file structure.

Regards

Denzil1977

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: What is the best CD Based imaging software
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2015, 02:55:40 pm »
Hi

I used to use Acronis home backup software to make images of my machines which worked fine on os2. We have know upgraded our systems to Ecomstation they back up ok but have mixed results when restoring a image. Can anyone recommend an Imaging software which can run of a cd that works with ECS and the JFS file structure.

Regards

Denzil1977

AFAIK there is no incremental backup solution available any more that does this with JFS support, the last vendor of such quit the OS/2 business in 2007 or thereabouts.

I work around this by creating a compressed partition image with DFSEE one or twice a year, then I can restore the partitions as they were at a certain point in time and then let the backup software write over the restored partitions, this effectively gives me the same result with only a 10 to 15 minutes extra work involved but much faster restore times. And appears to be more reliable if anything.

It can also be handy to keep some of these images if you have made a mess of a certain installation and want to start again.

Doug Bissett

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Re: What is the best CD Based imaging software
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2015, 08:39:14 pm »
DFSEE can do whole volume, or whole disk, images, but they need to be restored as a complete package, you cannot pick individual files or directories (Acronis would be the same, when backing up OS/2 volumes). The other problem is that it will restore to the same size, and geometry, not allowing changes, so you end up with exactly what was backed up, losing any interim changes. I highly recommend using DFSEE to do the Disk Analysis thing, and save the results (as prompted).

Since BackAgain/2(000) has become totally unreliable (it backs up okay, but it won't restore properly, in all cases), I have been using ZIP to zip up whole volumes (including active boot drives). It is easy to simply format a volume, then unzip into it (size and geometry don't matter, as long as it is OS/2 compatible). Sometimes, I need to use SYSINSTX, but it has always worked, for me. I use that method for boot drives, but I do make sure that they contain ONLY the OS. and a few other things that don't matter. I also ZIP up my programs/data drives, but that is a secondary backup. You do need a version of ZIP/UNZIP that can handle files that are larger than 2 GB, if you have files larger than 2 GB, or if the resulting zip file is larger than 2 GB. Note also that this is NOT an incremental, or differential backup solution.

For my data/programs volumes, I also use RSync to copy to a USB drive, and a LAN drive. To extract individual files, or directories, I just need to attach the device, and copy what I want. USB, and LAN, is slow, so if I ever need to copy a whole volume, I would probably remove the drive from the USB enclosure, or the LAN machine, and attach it directly to the computer. This is also not really an incremental, or differential, backup solution. It always produces a full backup by replacing, adding, or deleting, files to match the source. After the first pass (where it has to do all of it), it simply does the changes, so it is very fast.

I do use the Seagate version of Acronis (free, but you do need a Seagate, Maxtor, or Samsung drive attached - can be USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI, SAS, but not LAN) for windows backups (Look for Seagate Disk Wizard - it does not have all of the features of the full Acronis program, but it works well). There is no doubt that that is the very best windows backup (the ONLY one that actually works for windows, that I know about), but it is probably not ideal for OS/2 (if it works at all). Be sure that you don't let it mess with boot records, or it could mess them up.

guzzi

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Re: What is the best CD Based imaging software
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2015, 08:00:06 pm »
Rsync and EasySync http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/util/disk/EasySync310.wpi bot do file back up. As mentioned before, dfsee can restore parttions-

ak120

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Re: What is the best CD Based imaging software
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2015, 01:17:55 am »
It seems the OP is looking for a CD-based bare metal recovery solution that should work from inside a physical OS/2 system. So it's simply a two step process:
1. creating recovery disk images for using with cd boot
2. create a dump of system partition (preferable from a maintenance partition or using recovery boot disks from step 1)
In the end you have to integrate everything and create a bootable CD.