Re: Disk Muncher

[pg@sff.net (Paul Guertin)]

dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff) wrote:

> MJMahon (mjmahon@aol.com) wrote:
> : Digital data is frequently copied many times in the course of
> : its use, and the design of _any_ copy utility should aim to
> : perform copying _absolutely flawlessly_, within the limits
> : of the technology.  This is why any copy program should,
> : by default, read back copied data and verify that it is
> : identical to the original if there is any possibility of an
> : error (as there is on disk).

For maximum safety, the verify step should be done on a different
drive. I had a backup fail once because the (5 1/4 inch) disk was
off-center in the drive. It copied and verified OK, but of course
there was no way of reading the data back when the backup was
needed. Locksmith 6.0's disk recovery saved the day and could 
restore almost everything on the disk, except a few sectors on 
track 0.

> Oh, for my own backups of the era, I didn't use copy utilities...I used
> redundant SAVEs instead.

So did I, and the really important stuff got printed on paper and
stashed somewhere safe. Human-readable backups bring me peace of
mind.

Paul Guertin
pg@sff.net