Drive Backup and Restore

FS/2 may be used to perform an uncompressed backup of a drive. Starting a drive backup is nearly identical to copying a directory - which in this case is the root directory. Files that are in use cannot be copied so some precautions are in order. If the backup is run on the booted drive, it is likely that at least two files are in use:

• IBMLAN\ACCOUNTS\NET.ACC - Networking accounts (stop requester to backup)
  
• OS2\SYSTEM\SWAPPER.DAT - Swap file (may be on a different drive). Backup is not necessary or desirable.

In addition to the above, there may be several log files not copied but these are not critical for a drive restore operation.

If the fs_ops.log is enabled (default), any file that does not successfully copy will be logged along with the error causing the failure.

Starting a Drive Backup

To start a complete drive backup, RMB click on the desired tree root directory. From the context menu, select Drive Copy to copy without any filtering. If some filtering is desired, set the file filter in the active Files window and use the Drive Copy->With Filtered Files extended menu option. With this option, only the files allowed by the filter will be copied. The backup is made as a directory on the target drive. Set the target drive either with a manual entry or by clicking the target drive and directory into the Directories window. A proposed target name of X_Drive is presented where X is the source drive. Press Copy to commence the operation. Press Copy with the Ctrl key down to update the target directory if it exists. The update moding copies new files and compares the last write time for existing files of the same name and overwrites those that have a later last write time without prompting the user for confirmation.

This type backup is equivalent to using XCOPY with the added improvements of requiring no setup switches, a progress bar and log of the results.

Simultaneous backup of two drives is possible by using each Files window for separate operations. Starting other FS/2 instances can result in backing up a number of drives simultaneously, albeit at the expense of speed in each individual backup.

Verifying a Drive Backup

There is no easy verification process for a drive backup. A directory comparison is typically too slow for the number of files involved and requires too much memory. Other more viable methods are:

• Look at the fs_ops.log for any failure to copy files during the backup.
• Use the Directories->Query function and compare the number of files and directories on the source and target drives. Use the dialog Save Info button to save the data and view in FlexEdit.
• Show all the directories for both the source and target drives in the two Files window and select Subdirectories->Get All Dir Size to show the directories size for each first level directory Visually compare the results using the Vertical style windows display.
  

• Note: The following steps will restore a partition. If restoring a bootable partition, the steps must be performed from an alternate bootable partition or booting with the CD to a command line in PM and running FS/2 from that command line. However, it should be possible to perform similar steps from the non-PM command line.

• Copy the backup directory (X_Drive) to the target drive.
• Select the directory and, in the active Files window, change the view mode to show the subdirectories by clicking the Files/Directories icon at the upper left of the window.Select all subdirectories and drag or dialog move them to the root directory of the drive.
• Change the view mode to show files. Select all files in the X_Drive directory and drag or dialog move them to the root directory.
• Delete the empty X_drive directory to complete the restoration.
• Boot to the target drive if restoring a bootable partition.