NAME BackMan -- backs up your data. INPUTS DRIVE/K - drive name(s), as DF0:, PC0:, etc. Doesn't need trailing colon, but will be truncated at the first colon if present (i.e. you could say "DF0:foo" if you really wanted to). DEVICE/K - name of trackdisk-like Exec device (say, scsi.device). The device must support the TD_GETGEOMETRY command to work with BackMan. Almost any trackdisk-like device will do, but if you get unlikely disk sizes it probably lacks full support of the command in question (for example, diskspare.device 1.6 will say it can hold something like 512 Mb per disk). However, avoid naming the device itself and stick to the standard DOS drive name if possible (DFx: for trackdisk.device, PCx: for mfm.device, etc.), because the interface is much more reliable. SHOW/S - print out complete file catalogs' listings. Only selected entries will be shown. The LIST option automatically enables SHOW and does nothing else. NOCOM/S - don't backup/restore file comment. Especially useful when restoring files to a MS-DOS® disk or partition handled by CrossDOS® (or similar), since the MS-DOS® file system doesn't support comments and you would get a "Can't set comment" error for every file that has a comment. Can also save some memory and disk space if you don't need to backup comments and your files have them. NOTE: this options refers to files' comments, while the next refers to the global backup comment. Don't confuse the two. COM=COMMENT/K - backup comment. This comment will be shown every time the backup is read. By default, the comment will be set to the name of the drawer being backed up. KEYS Press CTRL-C to abort BackMan. Press CTRL-F to stop (pause) BackMan; press CTRL-F again to restart. NOTES The secondary file list ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On backup, BackMan will write the file list twice: once at the beginning of the backup and once again at the end. In this way you will have a chance of recovering your backup, should the first file list be corrupted by chance or by mistake. On restore, if you insert the last disk of a backup when asked for the first, then BackMan will ask you if you want to read the file list from that disk: you can safely do so if you want, but you will do one disk swap more than if you read the file list from the first disk. Please note that the secondary file list could actually start on the last but one disk: in this case BackMan will request the correct disk. This can happen because there could be just a little bit of space left on the last but one disk, but not enough to contain the whole file list, so it will be split between the last two disks. The secondary file list could actually start on even earlier disks if your backup contained an extremely large number of files (more than 3128 files in the worst case, usually over ten thousands). In this case it will span more than two disks. Existing files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you are asked for a new file name (if you selected to rename an already existing file), you can select the Cancel button of the "Enter new name" requester to skip the file in question. CMD_FORMAT or CMD_WRITE? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By default BackMan writes data to disk using TD_FORMAT for DOS drives, while it will use CMD_WRITE for Exec devices. This behaviour is meant to speed up floppy disk operations (TD_FORMAT is quite faster than CMD_WRITE on floppy disks), while it is better suited for direct writes to hard disks, removables, or non-floppy data storage peripherals in general (SyQuest drives and tape drives, for example), which sometimes don't like being formatted. However, this logic is not perfect, so you can force the use CMD_WRITE by unselecting the "Format" checkmark in the configuration window. BackMan has been tested with trackdisk.device, ramdrive.device, mfm.device (as supplied with WB 3.1), diskspare.device (public domain, formats standard DD disks to 960 or 984 kb), ?compressdisk.device? NOTE FOR THE NOVICE USER: forget about all this, DON'T try to backup your data to hard disks and DON'T use direct Exec device access (except as instructed for tape drives) unless you are absolutely sure of what you're doing. You could lose the data you're backing up and much more by improper use of these options. WARNINGS It is the user's responsibility to prevent any changes to the files being backed up in the time interval from when the directory is read to when the file is effectively backed up on disk, tape, or whatever. Any changes would result in more or less inconsistent data being written to the backup, particularly if the file size is changed. BackMan will notice changes in file size and abort the backup (no recovery would be possible, except rewriting most of the backup from the beginning), but other, although less relevant, changes to the file attributes will deliberately go unnoticed. If you are really really paranoid, I'd suggest to make a backup copy of the first and/or last backup disks, because these two disks contain the main and secondary file lists: in this way you will be more protected against corruption of said lists, without whom it is impossible to restore the backup. BackMan can't handle backups of more than about 2 gigabytes of data. But then, is there anybody out there who backs up 2 Gb in a single shot? ;) (If you're curious, it would take over 2383 DD disks...) diskspare.device has proven to be not very reliable when used through the DEVICE option, so please avoid using it in this way and stick to DRIVE after mounting the appropriate DOS driver. ESOTERIC SUGGESTIONS If you want to transfer data between two nearby computers without setting up some kind of network and you choose BackMan, you don't need to do the whole backup: you need just one disk, though it would be better to have a couple more so you can backup on one computer and restore on the other at the same time. Simply start BackMan on both computers, and move the disks from one computer to the other as soon as they're finished. You have to set the "Ignore contents" option on the computer that is doing the backup, otherwise it will reject the disks because they belong to the current backup. NO WARRANTY THERE IS NO WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE QUALITY OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS PROGRAM. THE ENTIRE RISK FOR THE USE OF THIS PROGRAM IS ASSUMED BY THE USER (YOU). THE AUTHORS MAY NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OR CORRUPTION OF DATA, EQUIPMENT OR OTHER GOODS RESULTING BY THE USE OR POSSESSION OF THIS PROGRAM, EVEN IF IN KNOWLEDGE THAT SUCH LOSS OR CORRUPTION MIGHT HAPPEN. However, the authors dedicated themselves to ensure that the program will behave very likely as described in this manual and that it does not contain evident flaws. It has been continuously and thoroughly tested throughout development, and it has proven to be reliable in everyday use. The authors are willing to maintain the program and correct misbehaviours, though they cannot make any promises on this. In other words, we did our best to write a reliable backup program and in fact we rely on it enough to use it for our very own backups, but we wrote enough programs to know that there is always another bug, no matter how good the programmer is. Be careful the first times you try a program like this, which will be responsible of keeping your data safe, and start using it for important backups only after you've acquired a certain feeling on it.