Quarterback V2.2 Release Notes October 29, 1988 Thank you for purchasing Quarterback. We have put a lot of effort into making Quarterback as reliable as possible. We made some last-minute changes to it after the manual was printed, and we noticed a few things which are not clearly explained in the manual. We suggest that you print these notes and keep a copy with your Quarterback manual. If you call us for support, please have your serial number and version number ready. The serial number is on the Quarterback master diskette label. The version number appears in the title bar of the Quarterback window. Be sure to send us your postage-paid warranty card. It costs you only a few seconds of your time, but we are much more receptive to your call if your name is already in our computer. Our business hours are 8:30AM to 5:00PM Pacific time. SUMMARY OF V2.2 CHANGES - Two-drive backup/restore, with automatic switching - Support for CLtd's Konica 10.7MB floppy drive - Support for CSA's streaming tape drive - Support for Inner-Connection's Bernoulli Box - Backup/restore to any AmigaDOS device with mountlist entry - Writes two copies of catalog to backup volumes - Backup/restore reports can be assigned unique path/name - Uses devices name strings, not gadgets for device selection - Selected devices and report path/names saved in parameter file - "Volume changed" gadgets added to status boxes - Report lines-per-page from Preferences - References to "diskettes" changed to "volumes" - Fully supports PAL windows and/or Morerows - Fully compatible with new Fast File System (VERY FAST!!) - Uses default report names if cannot open user-defined name GENERAL NOTES If you run Quarterback from CLI (instead of Workbench) you should make certain that you issue the command: STACK 10000 before you invoke Quarterback. Many Amiga users insert the STACK command into their startup-sequence so that the stack is set large enough for a variety of programs. You can use a larger stack, if you wish, but Quarterback may occasionally crash if the stack is too small. Quarterback expects you to define the device(s) you wish it to use to backup your files or restore your files. Unless your Amiga is equipped with some high-capacity removable-media device, such as the new Konica 10.7MB floppy drive, you will probably want to back up your files to one or two floppy disk drives. In any case, you must always use the proper AmigaDOS name for the device, such as DF0:, DF1:, etc. If you intend to backup your files to some device other than floppy disks, you must know the proper AmigaDOS name for that device. This is defined in the Mountlist file, which is part of the DEVS: subdirectory. If you do not know what the Mountlist is or how to find it and examine it, you should ask your Amiga dealer for help. Attention A2000 owners - if you have two 3.5-inch floppy drives, and they are physically arranged with DF2 on the left and DF0 on the right, you can force Quarterback to display DF2 status in the left status box and DF0 status in the right status box (so that the status boxes correspond to the physical arrangement of the disk drives). To do this, simply enter DF2 as the primary backup device and DF0 as the secondary backup device. The primary backup device is always assigned to the left status box, and the secondary backup device is always assigned to the right status box. If you wish to use cheap 5.25-inch diskettes for your backup volumes, you can use the Amiga model 1020 5.25-inch floppy drive for backups and restores. However, you must follow these steps: 1. Make a new Mountlist entry for the drive. Assign it a new device name, such as FLOP:. Copy the remainder of the parameters from the entry for DF2:. DO NOT ASSIGN A NAME of DF0, DF1, DF2, or DF3. Anything else is fine. 2. Mount the new device name manually from CLI or add the new mount command to your startup-sequence. 3. Start Quarterback. Specify the new device name as the primary backup device. If you don't understand how to modify the Mountlist and startup-sequence, ask your Amiga dealer to help you. If you specify that an archive or restoration report is to be sent to a disk and Quarterback cannot successfully open a file to hold the report, Quarterback reports that fact and asks if you wish to retry. If you answer NO, Quarterback produces no report. If you answer YES, Quarterback uses the default report name and places the report in the current directory. This only applies to reports sent to disk. If you have specified PRT: to receive the report, the preceeding comment does not apply. DTM Werbung und EDV GmbH is the official distributor of the German language version of Quarterback. For further information, contact: Andreas Hoffmann DTM Werbung und EDV GmbH Poststrabe 25 6200 Wiesbaden-Bierstadt Federal Republic of Germany BACKUP NOTES In our own testing of Quarterback, we can backup a full 20MB hard disk in about 30 minutes in the fastest mode (write verification disabled and archive bits not set). Your results may vary, depending on the speed of your hard drive and the degree of fragmentation of your files. Quarterback may encounter illegal file names, such as "*" when it builds the catalog of files. Such file names cannot be processed by Quarterback, and are automatically excluded from the catalog and from the backup. RESTORE NOTES Quarterback writes a list of all the files to be backed up onto the first backup volume. We call this list the "catalog of files". When you restore your files, Quarterback uses this list to find the name, size, and location of each file on the backup volumes. Quarterback cannot restore even a single file without this catalog. Earlier versions of Quarterback wrote the catalog of files to the first backup volume only. This means that NONE of your files could be restored if the first backup volume became lost or unreadable. We have corrected this problem in version 2.0. Quarterback V2.0 writes TWO copies of the catalog to your backup volumes. One copy is written to the FIRST backup volume, as before, and the other copy is written to the LAST backup volume. This happens automatically during the backup operation. During a restoration, if Quarterback cannot find the catalog on the first backup volume, you can direct it to look for the alternate catalog on the LAST backup volume. Follow these steps: Step 1. Quarterback first directs you to load the first backup volume. Load the first volume and click PROCEED. Step 2. Quarterback checks for a valid Quarterback backup volume ID, sequence number 1. If Quarterback cannot find the a valid ID, it warns you that the volume is not a Quarterback backup volume. If it finds the proper ID, it tries to read the catalog. Step 3. If Quarterback cannot read the primary catalog from the first volume, it warns you in a requester. You have three choices: PROCEED (retry), SKIP (go past the bad disk) or CANCEL (stop the restoration). Step 4. Click on SKIP to direct Quarterback to attempt to read the alternate catalog. Quarterback directs you to load the LAST volume of the backup set. Note: Quarterback cannot know which volume is the last one. YOU must do the thinking here. If you load a volume other than the last volume, Quarterback will not be able to find the alternate catalog. Step 5. Load the LAST volume of the backup set. Click PROCEED. Quarterback scans that volume looking for the alternate catalog. This scanning process may take a minute or more, since Quarterback does not know just where the catalog will be found, if it is found at all. If Quarterback cannot find the alternate catalog on the volume you have loaded, it will warn you in a requester. Note: It is possible that the alternate catalog may actually start on the next-to-last volume, and may end on the last volume. In this case, Quarterback will direct you to load the proper volume by number. When Quarterback has successfully loaded one of the catalogs, it will display the catalog of files on the screen. If neither catalog can be found, it is not possible to restore ANY of the files. Quarterback V2.0 permits the use of two disk drives for restoring files to your hard disk. As the files are restored from a volume, Quarterback directs you to load the next sequential volume so that no time is lost when the first volume is finished. This works just fine if you are performing a full restoration, since the volumes are always used in numerical order in that case. However, if you are restoring only a few files which are scattered across several backup volumes, Quarterback may discover that the volume it has already told you to load is not the volume it needs next. In this case, it may direct you to load a different volume without ever looking at the one you have already loaded. To avoid this inconvenience you should consider using only a single drive when you restore only a few files. Attention A2000 owners with the Bridgeboard! You CAN backup and restore your MS-DOS virtual disk drives using Quarterback. You can specify the AmigaDOS device (such as P2:) and optional path to the directory containing the virtual MS-DOS drive (which appears as a single AmigaDOS file on the Amiga side of the system). WARNING - If you attempt to restore this file from your backup volumes, you must perform the restore BEFORE you issue the JLINK command. If you attempt to restore the file AFTER the JLINK command, Quarterback will be unable to write into file and you will see a cryptic requester indicating a restore error. This happens because the file is locked by JLINK, and cannot be deleted or written into from the Amiga side. GOOD LUCK! Here's hoping that you never need to use Quarterback to restore your hard disk. And thank's for your support! George and Betty Chamberlain Central Coast Software