Bruce writes:

> I replaced the disc, reloaded the OS, and restored the files from the

How long did the "reloaded the OS" take?

> All the stuff in the Registry was gone. Forever. Not all of my efforts --

That's one item that CodeBlue/2 preserves, allegedly.

> I'm curious: on Linux, it's necessary to have an OS on floppy to boot the
> machine (using a RAM disc for root) but once that's done, I can restore
> everything from tape and get my system back exactly as it was before, OS
> images and all. Since the initial boot is to RAM disc, almost any random
> boot/root disc will suffice to get the recovery underway. I know that it
> used to be possible to boot HP-UX to RAM disc from tape and do the same
> thing. Is that no longer the case?

You still have to do an install of the OS, with no partition info or
file system size/layout information saved anywhere.  You have to
start from the HP install disk/tape ... you can't generate your
own install disk/tape (as you can on the 3000).

> has a couple of key features, one of which is an option to automatically
> verify a backup tape once the backup is finished. But since it was the

The CodeBlue/2 product also does a verify.

I forgot to mention that it requires you to run it from DOS, essentially.
(I.e., not from within Windows 95 or Win NT.)  However, I don't mind that
limitation.

> Part of the problem with NT (and Linux) is the hardware. The IBM PC BIOS
> can only load from floppy or hard disc, which makes it difficult to
> design an all-in-one tape format: there'd be no way to load it. The Mac

In the case of CodeBlue/2, the first time you run it to backup to tape,
it grabs the appropriate (hopefully!) SCSI driver from your system.
Although that worked for me at home (since I had a SCSI driver on disk),
I'm not sure how well it would work on a system that uses only native
Windows 95 or Windows NT "bundled" drivers.

That's why I'm so annoyed at Tapedisk for refusing to support parallel
port tape drives.  They're cheap, and much easier to access than
SCSI drives.

> one. Can Alpha platforms boot from tape?

Don't know.

--
Stan Sieler                                          [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.allegro.com/sieler.html