Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    I'm still trying to solve this. Does anyone have this TCTL program the
    following article is talking about? (it's not on TAPE::)
    
    
!>I can;t believe I have to live with the restriction that I must
!>always load all 100+ meg of information onto my system at once before backing
!>it up, or waste a whole tape (and the $$) to backup 10 floppies of info.
! 
!Yeah, use the TCTL program I posted a few months ago.  If you don't have it,
!check with an Amiga site that archives useful binaries.  It was posted to,
!I believe, c.s.a.programmer.  Perhaps it should go to the c.binaries.a
!moderator for his queue of "things to post".  (If you can't find a local
!copy, drop me mail.  I only have 2400baud to work with :-( so if there's
!a lot of requests I'll definately send it to c.b.a)
 
!Here's the usage message from TCTL.  I have marked operations which may
!only be available on my Archive Viper with an asterisk (listed as
!"Vendor-specific" in the Operations Guide for the Viper).  It uses
!SCSIDirect and as such doesn't require (and may interfere with) the
!operation of BTN (which I use :-) and friends.
!------------------------------------------------------------------------
!Usage:	tctl [-s #] cmd1 [... cmdn]
!	-s		Select the SCSI ID of the tape drive (default 4)
!These commands take no parameters:
!      *	eod		Move to EOD
!	erase		Erase the tape
!	msense		Print the write-protect mode (on=1/off=0),
!			buffering mode (on=1/off=0), and density (120/150)
!      *	reqblk		Print out current block position (blocks start at 1)
!	rewind		Rewind the tape
!	sense		Print out request sense data
!These commands take 1 parameter:
!      *	fsb n		Forward Space n Blocks
!      *	fsf n		Forward Space n Filemarks
!      *	fssf n		Forward Space n Sequential Filemarks
!      *	seek n		Seek to block n (blocks start at 1)
!	verify n	Run CRC verification on n blocks
!	writefm n	Write n filemarks on tape
!These commands take special parameters:
!	inquiry [n]	Print out inquiry data (only the first n bytes)
!	mselect b d	Select the buffering mode (on=1/off=0)
!			and density (120/150)
    
    
    Keith Barrett
    

    Having just upgraded to v2.04 of the OS I attempted to backup using the
    HDbackup supplied with the release to floppy.  I have a DF0: and a DF2:
    - one internal and one external.  When I select both floppy drives and
    start the backup I get a requestor to insert a diskette in drive 0.  I
    do this AND insert a diskette into drive 2.  The backup chugs along
    writing to df0: and when it is full starts writing to df2:  I place
    another diskette into df0: and when df2: is full it starts writing to
    df0: and I place another diskette into df2:.  When the third floppy is
    full (in df0:) I get a requestor asking me to place the 4th floppy into
    DF0:!!  When I remove and reinsert the floppy into DF2: or try to get
    HDbackup to recognize df2: nothing happens except for the requestor
    reappearing.  It appears that the backup program forgets that there are
    two floppy drives after writing to the 3rd diskette.  It is very
    consistent - 3rd diskette, forget drive df2:...  Anyone encounter any
    problems with HDbackup?
    
    mark
    

    
    Yep .. same thing happened with me!! Must be a bug.

    I still use Quarterback, so I haven't tried this utility yet. Most
    likely I may never try it. It seems funny to have a bug like this crop
    up . You would think this was one the beta testers should have
    resolved.
    								bill

Re: .4

>    up . You would think this was one the beta testers should have
>    resolved.

Hehehe. I never bothered to use BRU for making backups to floppy disk and I
doubt any other developer (and thus beta tester) has... ;-)

Cheers,

<CB>

    I've tried BRU, but with only one drive.  I just had to test it when I
    saw it.  (So sue me, I come from an RSX-11D background.  8^).
    
    Tony

    I tried it to a tape.  Software wise hdbackup/bru was nice, but tar with
    the BTN tape driver was at LEAST 40% faster!  Also, I'm not sure you
    can backup two devices to one tape with hdbackup/bru.  This is no
    problem for tar/btn.
    
    -steve

    Ami-back works for me.  I just wanted to see how hdbackup/bru
    functioned.  I came, I saw, I left!
    
    mark (thinking about a tape drive, but oh the $$$$$!)