Mark B. after / between others on this thread:


>The offline HP utility COPYUTIL will do this type of raw
>backup/restore.

>I've used it on both my 3000 and 9000 machines to take
>special backups.  I warn you though, it's got to be the world's
>slowest backup program.

We used it once too;  or rather, our CE used it;  to replace a
drive that Predictive said was going bad.  It worked fine and
thereby saved a RELOAD;  however, note that Mark's above
warning is not an exaggeration.  Since we have three volume
sets on our machine (USER, BACKUP, and the <long_name>,
doing an INSTALL of the <long_name> would have been
noticeably faster than using COPYUTIL....  Of course if you
have 100+ spindles and one of them in a large volume set
fails, COPYUTIL could be a real timesaver....

The ever-present possibility, however low, that a single disc
may for whatever reason decide to scramble itself leads me to
put in three "non-plug" plugs;  for things that will allow / will
help avoid the need to resort to COPYUTIL and/or RELOAD:

(1)  Make sure PREDICTIVE SUPPORT is operational and the
link to HP is working.  Pay attention to what it reports;  it has
warned us of several discs that were starting to have problems
before they failed catastrophically.

(2)  If you have anything more than a very small system, run
more than one volume set.  The slight additional complexity
to manage > one is well worth it for the extra flexibility and
benefits.

(3)  Run MirrorDisc/iX on all non-SYSTEM volume sets.  The
need for COPYUTIL or RELOAD is then moot...  On all but
the <long_name>, that is...  An if HP will just implement
mirroring of the <long_name>, the problem will be completely
solved.       :-)

(4)  Oops:  One more thing (except that I'm not putting in a
plug for this one):  RAID.  I still like the MirrorDisc solution....

Ken Sletten