Re:

> Having to go through this very same painstaking, lengthy, mundane
> process this weekend, I contacted HP to ask them about the COPYUTIL
> program. His reply was that it is "No longer used or embraced by HP. We
> are moving away from that due to the new technology of the drives". He
> didn't go into much detail but I suspect they don't like, or trust it
> anymore.

and

> Howard Hoxsie wrote:
> >
> > I've done this a couple of times as well, and you are right about the time
> > saving.  IIRC, the program is COPYUTIL and it is found inside ODE.  Most
> > systems have had ODE loaded up at some point so chances are it is there.

<plug>
An online alternative is the CLONE_DISK command in Lund's De-Frag/X.

However, this requires the ability to configure and connect the spare drive
(because the cloning is done while MPE is up), and has other considerations
as well.  It has been used successfully in the few instances I'm aware of.
</plug>

With any cloning technique, you have to ask: am I cloning bad data within
a file?  Short of examining every byte of every file manually, there's
no 100% positive way of knowing.  OTOH, reinstalling from a backup doesn't
guarantee anything, either :)   (The backup might have had bad data on
it already, the backup might have failed, the restore might fail due to
tape problems, etc.)

I generally recommend in favor of cloning if you're getting recoverable
errors.  With non-recoverable errors, the question is harder, and I lean
more towards re-install (or, for non-system-volume sets, rebuilding the
volume set).

SS