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- RESTORE 5.5
- ***********
-
- Last updated by Roedy Green on 90/10/16
-
- by Dan Wright and Roedy Green
- Canadian Mind Products
- #168 - 1020 Mainland Street
- Vancouver BC
- Canada V6B 2T4
- (604) 684-6529
-
- NOTE RESTORE 5.5 is NOT a free program. See REGISTER.TXT on how
- to register your copy.
-
- HISTORY
- *******
-
- In the thousands of copies of the earlier "Charware" version of
- the program so far distributed I received one card from a decent
- Englishman who donated to preserve the stately homes of England.
- I received one other from a doctor in Czechoslovakia who donated
- $90 to the Red Cross.
-
- On the other hand, Rockwell, a major US defense contractor, is
- using the program. They are using it to distribute their
- software. I refused them permission to use it, but they are
- using it anyway. Needless to say, those bastards made no
- donation to a charity.
-
- This is a pretty poor record. This version is no longer
- Charware; it is Shareware. It is NOT a free program.
-
- RESTORE was written in an emergency in a few days before
- Christmas 1986 to allow BBL/Abundance diskettes in
- Backup/Restore format to be restored to any machine, but it has
- more universal application. Because of the short time frame of
- its development, and because my phone was ringing off the hook
- during that time, the orginal version had rough edges.
-
- The new version has has been reasonably thoroughly tested with
- Periscope under MS-DOS 3.2, and MS-DOS 3.3 and has had cursory
- testing under PC-DOS 3.1, PC-DOS 3.2 and PC-DOS 3.3 and had
- thorough testing under PC-DOS 2.0 and 2.1. If you have trouble
- with other versions please let me know know so I can repair the
- problems. I give phone support only to people who have
- registered, however.
-
- TROUBLE SHOOTING
- ****************
-
- >> DAMAGED HARD DISK
-
- Most problems with my version of RESTORE can be traced to a
- damaged DOS on hard disk -- usually having the system files from
- one version of DOS and Command.Com from another. To repair a
- damaged DOS, boot from the floppy master DOS disk, type:
-
- SYS C:
- COPY A:COMMAND.COM C:
-
- then reboot.
-
- >> WATCH OUT FOR THE DEFAULT DIRECTORY
-
- Because RESTORE pays attention to the default subirectory,
- RESTORE A: C:*.*
- will restore files in the current directory -- NOT the root.
-
- To get the root either:
- CD \
- RESTORE A: C:*.*
- or
- RESTORE A: C:\*.*
-
- If you did this:
- CD \Mydir
- RESTORE A: C:*.*
- and if there were no files on the floppies backed up from
- \MyDir, then Restore would tell you there were NO files to
- restore. Restore will NOT restore files backup up from the root
- into C:\MyDir. Restore always puts files into the directory
- they came from originally.
-
- >> WRONG VERSION
-
- Another common problem is to accidentally use the original
- defective DOS RESTORE rather than this new version. This
- version announces itself with a banner than is distinctly
- different from the standard DOS version. It has little
- rainbow-like flashes like this:
-
- ░▒▓█ Canadian Mind Products █▓▒░
-
-
- >> SLASH VERSUS BACKSLASH
-
- Usually you should use C: and CD \ commands prior to using
- RESTORE. Make sure you have not added or deleted any spaces on
- the RESTORE command line. Make sure the use of \ and / on the
- command line is correct: e.g. RESTORE A: C:\*.*/S/P
-
- I have received many calls from people who could not tell the
- difference between a slash (/) and a backslash (\). RESTORE
- wants the switches on the C: NOT the A: DO NOT BE INVENTIVE.
- RESTORE IS PICKY JUST LIKE THE "REAL" RESTORE.
-
- >> TSR TROUBLE
-
- If you still have trouble, get rid of any TSR (Terminate and
- Stay Resident) programs from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
- Particularly suspect are programs that speed up hard disk
- access.
-
- >> RESTORE TO THE SAME DIRECTORY
-
- DOS RESTORE cannot restore files to a different directory from
- the one they were in when they were backed up. Neither can CMP
- RESTORE. Sometimes people attempt to type the name of a new
- different directory they would like the files to move to, then
- wonder why RESTORE says there are no matching files to restore.
- RESTORE will let you restore to a different DRIVE that you backed
- up from however. You can backup from C: and restore to D:.
-
-
- >> FORGETTING WHAT IS ON A BACKUP SET
-
- If you do not remember what the files are called on your backup
- diskettes, try this:
-
- RESTORE A: C:\*.* /S /P
-
- This way RESTORE will attempt to restore every file, and will
- prompt you with each file name so that you can bypass restoring
- it if you wish.
-
- Another method is to use a hex file browser to examine the
- diskettes directly. Information on the record layouts is in the
- source code for RESTORE.ASM.
-
-
- SAMPLES OF USE
- **************
-
- RESTORE A: C:\MySub\MyFile.Ext
- RESTORE A: C:\MySub\*.*/P/S/Q
- RESTORE A: C:\MySub/P
- RESTORE A: C:\MySub
- RESTORE A: \MySub -- presumes default drive
- RESTORE A: C:*.* -- presumes default directory
- RESTORE A: C:\*.BAT/S -- restores all BAT files in all
- subdirectories.
- FEATURES
- ********
-
- CMP RESTORE replaces MS-DOS or PC-DOS RESTORE utility. This
- version of RESTORE was written from scratch without using
- reverse engineering techniques to examine the commercial version
- code. All knowledge of how DOS RESTORE works was gleaned by
- examining hex dumps of files prepared by Backup. I hope
- Microsoft and IBM are not too angry with me for doing this. If
- I go to jail for violating some bizarre copyright law, I hope
- some of you come to visit me in prison.
-
- RESTORE is a direct replacement for MS/PC DOS 2.0 through 4.01.
- It will restore disks backed up under any version of DOS to any
- other version. Even MS DOS 4.01 backups can be restored to PC
- DOS 2.1
-
- Microsoft told me then had 22 reported bugs in Backup/Restore.
- This version of RESTORE fixes the bugs (real or imagined) that
- exist in the commercial versions:
-
- 1. Will properly create subdirectories automatically.
- Under certain conditions the commercial versions fail to do so.
- 2. Will accept diskettes from versions of DOS that use either / or \
- in the backup preambles. MS-DOS 3.2 BACKUP puts / instead of \
- in its filenames. IBM PC-DOS 3.2 RESTORE refuses to understand them.
- Take your pick whose fault it is.
- 3. Will read diskettes created MS or PC DOS 2.0 thru 3.2 and
- run under any level of DOS 2.0 thru 3.2.
- 4. It will not accidentally let you restore
- IBMBIO.COM IBMDOS.COM MSDOS.SYS or IO.SYS or COMMAND.COM
- 5. It does not get stack overflow errors.
- 6. It properly handles restoring of system, hidden and read/only files.
- 7. It properly considers the default drive and default subdirectory.
- 8. It will handle mixed upper/lower case in the command line.
- 9. It can read the dates produced by Zenith Backup.
- Zenith RESTORE cannot read the diskettes produced by
- Zenith Backup. I consider this bug criminal negligence.
-
- My RESTORE is not as elaborate as the commercial versions, only
- the /S and /P switches are supported.
-
- /P means pause for verification.
- /Q means Quiet -- no advertising banner.
- /S means restore subdirectories as well.
-
- This version has a few improvements over the commercial versions:
-
- 1. You get more than one chance to get the right diskette inserted.
- 2. RESTORE tells you what you have inserted as well as what it wants.
- 3. The error messages are more friendly.
- 4. The code is much smaller so it loads and executes more quickly.
- 5. It asks for additional confirmation before restoring
- read/only, system or hidden files.
-
- This version has the following shortcomings that can be blamed mainly
- on the format BACKUP uses:
-
- 1. If you insert a backup diskette from a different set,
- RESTORE will not notice and will go nuts.
- 2. To restore a file on diskette 7 you have
- to feed through diskettes 1 through 6 first, unless
- you know through ESP it is on diskette 7.
- There is no master directory to the diskette set.
- 4. Every file on the backup diskettes must be opened and
- examined before we can decide if it should be restored or not.
- This makes restoring only one file in a set agonizingly slow.
- 5. If any portion of a file is unreadable or lost, you have lost
- all of the file.
- 6. If the directory is not in strict order, things will
- not work. If someone copied files one by one to a
- different floppy, the directory may not be in the same
- order. RESTORE must first process the outstanding file
- from a previous floppy. The last thing it must do is process
- a file continued on another floppy. It depends on the
- directory being in order for this to work.
-
- This version has the following shortcomings that can be blamed
- mainly on my laziness:
-
- 1. If you abort, the file in the middle of being restored
- will not automatically be deleted. It will be corrupt.
- At least this lets you recover part of a damaged backup.
- We call this a feature.
- 2. It presumes the source drive diskette is removable and the
- target is not.
- 3. The error messages use informal language.
- RESTORE has a personality a little like a Jewish mother.
- 4. It does not handle all the switches.
- It does not recognize /A:date/B:date/E:time/L:time/M/N
- 5. If it gets I/O errors, it gives up rather than trying to
- carry on the best it can.
- 6. It has not been tested on all versions of DOS.
- 7. It has not been tested with pathologically long
- file names and default directories.
-
- SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION
- *********************
-
- Restore can also be used to distribute multi-disk software
- packages or databases. In the source code RESTORE.ASM is a
- equate switch called INSTALLING that customizes the banner,
- error messages and prompts to be more suitable for installing
- large software packages. This way you can prepare your
- distribution masters with any version of DOS restore, and rest
- assured they will restore to any hardware. Only registered
- users get the source code and hence access to this feature. If
- you combine this technique with PKZip compression, you can
- still further cut down the number of diskettes you need to
- distribute, and simplify the installation.
-
- -30-