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F L E X I B A K P l u s (TM) The Flexible Hard Disk Backup System Copyright 1991 Nildram Software All Rights Reserved FLEXIBAK Plus was written by Adrian Mardlin Address: Nildram Software 26 Stanley Hill Avenue Amersham Bucks HP7 9BD United Kingdom Telephone: (0494) 729236 Email: nildram@cix.compulink.co.uk 100012.1222@compuserve.com Program and Documentation Copyright 1991 Nildram Software. All rights reserved. FLEXIBAK Plus is a trademark of Nildram Software. FLEXIBAK is a trademark of Nildram Software. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks go to all those who played a part in Beta testing FLEXIBAK Plus, notably the following: Brian Gregory David Clark Neville E Sanderson Barry Drake Clive Goldman Jon Wolfe Thanks are also due to Borland for their excellent C++ compiler, Innovative Data Concepts for the TCXL screen handling library. INTRODUCTION Overview FLEXIBAK Plus, like its predecessor, FLEXIBAK, is a flexible, easy to use hard disk backup system that takes a logical, simple and unique approach to the backup problem. With a conventional backup system, you are required to take a full backup approximately once a week and do daily incremental backups which are placed on separate disks. Should you need to restore from the backup, you must first restore the full backup and then each of the incremental backups up to the last backup taken. With FLEXIBAK Plus, all this is different as the concept of full backups and incremental backups is removed. Instead, you only need to take a full backup once and then all subsequent backups are placed on the same backup disks, giving some long term speed increases, simpler file restoration and an improved backup management capability. Here are some of the more outstanding features provided by FLEXIBAK Plus: Selective backups allow you to specify, both globally and by directory, which file groups should be included in, or excluded from, the backup, potentially dramatically reducing the number of backup disks required. Incremental backups are placed on the same disks as the full backup, so you only ever need to take a full backup once. File management system means that FLEXIBAK Plus keeps track of what has been backed up, and informs you if any files have gone missing from your hard disk since the last backup. This allows you to recover accidentally deleted files. File compression is included in the system as is the capability to handle up to 20 hard disk drives. Alarm system warns you on booting your computer that you have forgotten to take a backup for a specified number of days. What Is Shareware? Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details. Some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With registration, you get anything from the simple right to continue using the software to an updated program with printed manual. Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group. For example, some authors require written permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their Shareware. Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocket, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee - if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. Disclaimer Users of FLEXIBAK Plus must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "FLEXIBAK Plus is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of FLEXIBAK Plus." Terms And Conditions FLEXIBAK Plus is a "Shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using FLEXIBAK Plus and continue to use FLEXIBAK Plus after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration payment of £29.95 to Nildram Software. The £29.95 registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time. Commercial users of FLEXIBAK Plus must register and pay for their copies of FLEXIBAK Plus within 30 days of first use or their licence is withdrawn. Site Licence arrangements may be made by contacting Nildram Software. Anyone distributing FLEXIBAK Plus for any kind of remuneration must first contact Nildram Software at the address below for authorisation. This authorisation will be automatically granted to distributors recognised by either the Association of Shareware Professionals or the Association of Shareware Authors - UK as adhering to their guidelines for shareware distributors, and such distributors may begin offering FLEXIBAK Plus immediately. You are encouraged to pass a copy of FLEXIBAK Plus along to your friends for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the FLEXIBAK Plus system. Registration FLEXIBAK Plus is a shareware product. This means that you are free to use it for trial purposes only and you may freely pass copies on to your friends and colleagues. However, if you find FLEXIBAK Plus useful and intend to continue using it, you must register your copy. To do this, either print out and fill in the registration form provided (Type 'COPY REGISTER.DOC PRN' at the DOS prompt), or send a cheque for £29.95 or your credit card details to the following address: Nildram Software, 26 Stanley Hill Avenue, Amersham, Buckinghamshire HP7 9BD For your money, you will receive the latest version of FLEXIBAK Plus without the registration encouragement screen, a printed manual, free support and cheap upgrades as and when they become available. Overseas Registrations For European users, there is an additional shipping charge of £2.00 and for other overseas users, the charge is an extra £5.00. However for those in the USA or Canada, FLEXIBAK Plus can be registered for just $39.95 + $4.00 shipping from: Shareable Software International, Inc PO Box 59102 Schaumburg, IL 60159 USA Phone: (708) 397 1221 Compuserve: 76226,2652 EXEC-PC: Bill Dickson Support Support is offered to registered users in the following ways. Firstly, any updates of FLEXIBAK Plus will be available to you for a minimal fee. All registered users will be notified of any major updates. Lifetime support for FLEXIBAK Plus is provided and can be obtained by contacting Nildram Software by writing, telephone or any of the Email addresses listed at the front of this manual. USA and Canadian customers can also obtain support by contacting Shareable Software International, Inc at the addresses detailed in the Overseas Registrations section. The Future It is hard to predict the future of FLEXIBAK Plus. However, there are still many things that could be done to make FLEXIBAK Plus a better product than it already is, such as disk formatting, file encryption and a faster backup disk filing system. What changes and enhancements will be made depends very much on you and your feedback, which I can assure you will be listened to and acted upon to make FLEXIBAK Plus the product you want it to be. Shareware Associations Nildram Software is a member of two very important Shareware organisations, both of which impose minimum standards on their members. The following two statements are part of those standards and provide a method of settling disputes between yourself and any member of each organisation. This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. Nildram Software is a member of the Association of Shareware Authors - UK (ASA-UK). ASA-UK wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you have a dispute with an ASA-UK member that you are unable to resolve directly with that member, then you can write to the ASA-UK Ombudsman at the following address: The Ombudsman, ASA-UK, PO Box 26, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 4WA INSTALLATION AND GETTING STARTED Installation Installation is a very straightforward process. All you need to do is insert the disk on which FLEXIBAK Plus is located into the drive, select that drive as the current drive by typing "A:" or "B:" (depending on the drive in which the disk is inserted) at the DOS prompt. Now type "INSTALL" and press <ENTER> and then follow the instructions. Alternatively, if you acquired your copy of FLEXIBAK Plus by downloading it from a BBS or you prefer to manually install it, just create a directory on your hard disk and copy all the files to that directory. Setting The Alarm FLEXIBAK Plus has a warning alarm feature that warns you if you haven't taken a backup recently. To enable this, you should place the following lines in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file in an appropriate place. (If you are not sure about the function of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file or how to alter it, please consult your MS-DOS reference manual). x: CD \FLEXPLUS FLEXPLUS /A=y C: Where 'x' is the hard disk drive where you have installed FLEXIBAK Plus - if other than drive C - and 'y' is the number of days after which you wish the alarm to sound. If you have done this correctly, every time you boot your computer FLEXIBAK Plus will check to see how long it has been since the last backup was taken and if it is longer ago than the specified threshold - 'y' in the above example - an alarm will be sounded giving you the opportunity to take a backup. Command Line Parameters If you are running on a machine with a particularly low amount of free memory or a particularly high number of files, you may have trouble getting started with FLEXIBAK Plus as it will abort with an exception message saying that it has either run out of memory, file space or directory space. You can override the initial memory allocation settings of FLEXIBAK Plus by use of some command line options which can later be set permanently by using the General Setup option of the Setup menu. To override the number of files (the default is 4000) that space is allocated for, use the "/F" command line option and to override the number of directories (the default is 300), use the "/D" command line option. For example, if you have a particularly large hard disk, you might use a command like this: FLEXPLUS /F=5000 /D=500 This would tell FLEXIBAK Plus to allocate space for 5000 files and 500 directories. TUTORIAL Getting Started Once you have installed FLEXIBAK Plus on your system, you can run it by changing to the "x:\FLEXPLUS" directory, where "x" is the hard disk drive onto which FLEXIBAK Plus was installed, and typing, "FLEXPLUS". FLEXIBAK Plus should now start up and proceed to log your drive C. FLEXIBAK Plus defaults to backing up all files on drive C, except those with the extension ".BAK", with no compression and the destination disk set to drive A. If this setup is ideal for you, then you can use FLEXIBAK Plus straightaway. Otherwise, you should configure the setup by using the Setup menu which is documented in the Reference chapter. You should see a menu bar across the top of the screen with the Backup option highlighted. Press <ENTER> and a menu will appear. Select the Start Backup option to begin your backup and follow the instructions. The Backup Data File The backup data file, called "FLEXPLUS.DAT" or similar, contains information about all the files in the backup set, along with the setup of your backup. While, in emergencies, it is possible to restore data without this file (using FPREST), any such rebuild will take time and cannot be guaranteed to rebuild the file to its original state. Therefore, you should take every opportunity offered by FLEXIBAK Plus to update this file (for example, set the Save Data File After Each Disk? flag to "Y") and keep a copy on your master diskette. i.e. Don't skip the part on exiting FLEXIBAK Plus when you are asked to insert the master disk and press <ENTER>. A copy of this file is also saved as "FLEXPLUS.BAK" (or whatever you have called the data file) each time you run FLEXIBAK Plus as an extra precaution. Using Multiple Backup Sets It is possible in FLEXIBAK Plus to have more than one set of backup disks to give an increased security to the backup. This can also be used to speed up the backup process as you could have a complete backup on one set of disks and just the most vital files on another set of disks. This would allow you to use the second set for day to day backups and the main backup set can be updated perhaps once a week or so. This would mean that any non- vital files that changed during the week would only be backed up once, at the end of the week. Keeping multiple backup sets is a good way to improve the security of your backup as, although FLEXIBAK Plus can detect that files have gone missing, it can't detect if they have been corrupted and you might not notice until after a backup has been taken. With multiple backups, you are able to go to the previously used backup set and restore the file from there. To specify alternative backup sets, simply pass the name of the set as an argument when you run FLEXIBAK Plus. For example: FLEXPLUS FULLBAK will create a backup data file called "FULLBAK.DAT" and will use the name "FULLBAK" as an identification on all backup disks so that it is not possible to mix up the disks from two different backups. REFERENCE Introduction The screen is split into 3 main sections. The top section contains statistics which enable you to see at a glance the status of the backup. The meaning of the figures are as follows: Backed Up: The total number of files backed up. To Add: The total number of files left to add to the backup disks. Queries: The number of unanswered queries. To Restore: The total number of files tagged to restore. No Disks: The number of disks in the backup set so far. Note that this is not the number of disks required to backup all the files. Total K: The total number of Kilobytes of files in the backup. The main section of the screen is where most of the interaction between the user and FLEXIBAK Plus occurs. A general rule throughout FLEXIBAK Plus is that <ENTER> is used as a positive response to a question or situation and <ESCAPE> is used as a negative response or to 'escape' from a situation. If you remember this, then you will very quickly feel at home with FLEXIBAK Plus. The bottom section of the screen is used for on-line help. You should refer to this if you ever get stuck or are unsure what is happening or what a particular function will do. In addition to these three main screen sections, FLEXIBAK Plus contains a pull-down menu system which enables you to quickly and easily move around and select the various program functions. The various menu options are explained in depth later on in this chapter. Mouse Support FLEXIBAK Plus supports any Microsoft compatible mouse, as long as the appropriate mouse driver is loaded. You will find that a mouse will greatly ease your use of FLEXIBAK Plus and, in fact, it is possible to use FLEXIBAK Plus without ever needing to touch the keyboard. The left button on the mouse is the equivalent of <ENTER> while the right button represents <ESCAPE>. Backup Menu The Backup Menu contains all the necessary options for day to day use of FLEXIBAK Plus, allowing you to backup files, answer queries and restore files as necessary. Start Backup Option This option starts the backup process which will add any tagged files (see the "To Add" count in the statistics box at the top of the screen) to the backup disks. If a new disk is required, you will be asked to insert a Blank, Formatted disk, otherwise you will be asked to insert a particular disk number. Don't worry about inserting the wrong disk as FLEXIBAK Plus checks each disk inserted to make sure that it is the correct disk or, in the case of a blank disk, to make sure that it is blank. If FLEXIBAK Plus requires a blank disk and you do not have any blank disks left but wish to use a non-blank disk, you can use the Inspect Disk and Erase Disk options in the DOS menu to check your disks and then erase them as necessary. FLEXIBAK Plus will now update the backup disk by deleting any unwanted files (those tagged for deletion when answering queries) and adding any new or changed files to the disk. When it has finished with a disk, FLEXIBAK Plus will ask you to either insert another disk or will return you to the menu if there are no more files to add to the backup disks. Answer Queries Option From time to time, files on your hard disk drive(s) that are backed up will be deleted, either accidentally or on purpose. FLEXIBAK Plus is unique among hard disk backup utilities in that it will notice that a file has gone missing and tag it as a Query (the number of Queries is displayed in the statistics box at the top of the screen). This option will allow you to answer any outstanding Queries by deciding whether to restore each file or delete it from the backup disks also. To make matters easier for you, FLEXIBAK Plus attempts to group files by directory when asking you to answer a Query. Thus, if you delete all the backed up files from a particular directory, or you remove the directory entirely, you will first be asked whether you want to Restore the entire directory, Delete the entire directory or deal with each file as an individual Query. You will then be given the opportunity to answer Queries on individual files, which you may choose to Restore, Delete or Skip. By Skipping a Query, you can postpone indefinitely your decision on what to do with that file, though FLEXIBAK Plus will alert you to the fact that you have outstanding Queries whenever you select the Start Backup option as I don't advise this practice. Restore Tagged Option Use this option to Restore any files tagged for restoration by use of the Answer Queries option. You will be prompted to enter disks in much the same way as in the Start Backup option except that, by pressing <ESCAPE>, you are able to skip a disk and move on to the next backup disk. This is to account for the possibility of one of the backup disks being either lost or destroyed. If FLEXIBAK Plus has a problem restoring any file, you will be alerted and the file will be tagged as a Query so that it can be reprocessed at a later time. Restore Queries Option If you are sure that you want to restore all the files tagged as Queries, rather than answering a string of Queries, you can use this option which will tag all Queries for restoration and then restore them in the same way as the Restore Tagged option. Restore All Option To restore all files, including those that are still on the hard disk drive(s), you should use this option. You should only ever need to use this option after a complete hard disk failure. Do not use it at any other time unless you are absolutely sure what you are doing as you could end up restoring files that are older than those currently on your hard disk. Be careful! Restore Directory Option It is possible with this option to restore all the files in a particular directory while also changing the directory name if desired. This can be useful if you need to transfer files from one PC to another as you can take a whole directory from one system and restore it to another directory on the other system. Upon selecting this option, you will be presented with a pick list of the available directories from which you should select the directory you wish to restore. After selecting the directory, you will be given the opportunity to enter a new directory name to which the files should be restored. The operation will then proceed as for the Restore Tagged option. You should note however that, for safety reasons, this option will only restore those files that are already tagged as either Queries or for Restoration. i.e. They must not already exist on the source disk. Setup Menu The Setup Menu is used to alter the setup of FLEXIBAK Plus to suit your requirements. Three of the options in this menu take you into a window where you can configure File Specs. These are a series of DOS wildcards (such as "*.*" which means all files or "*.EXE" which means all files ending in ".EXE") which enable you to configure which files should be included or excluded from the backup or compression. File Specs ending with a "-" are taken as exclusions, and File Specs are processed in the order in which they occur. For example, the default Global File Specs are "*.*" followed by "*.BAK-" which means that FLEXIBAK Plus will backup all files except those ending in ".BAK". If theses File Specs were the other way around, the FLEXIBAK Plus would backup everything as the last File Spec, "*.*" would tell it to include all files. To add a File Spec, just type it in and press <ENTER> and to remove a File Spec, you should type in the opposite File Spec. For example, to remove "*.*", type in "*.*-" and press <ENTER>. If you wish to change the order of File Specs, you must first remove the leading File Specs and then add them to the end by re- entering them. A maximum of 12 File Specs are allowed in each situation. Global File Specs Option This option should be used to configure the Global File Specs for your setup. Upon selecting this option, you will be taken straight into the File Spec Entry window where you can alter the Global File Specs to suit your system requirements. Global File Specs are applied to EVERY directory on the source disk(s) and will be automatically effective on any new directories that are created. If you alter any Global File Specs, you should select the Re-Log Disk(s) option from the Utilities menu in order for the changes to take effect. Local File Specs Option Use this option to configure File Specs for a particular Directory. You will first be presented with a pick list of all the logged directories from which you should select your required directory. This will now take you to the File Spec Entry window where you can add any Local File Specs. Local File Specs are applied to a directory after Global File Specs and not instead of them. If you alter any Local File Specs, you should select the Re-Log Disk(s) option from the Utilities menu in order for the changes to take effect. Comp File Specs Option Compression File Specs are used to determine whether a file should be compressed or not. So, for example, you might want to Compress all files except those which are already compressed such as "*.ZIP" and "*.ARC". In such a case, you would enter File Specs of "*.*", "*.ZIP-" and "*.ARC-". You should note that unless you specifically include the files you wish to compress (for example, by using "*.*"), no compression will occur. General Setup Option Upon selecting this option, a window will pop up containing a selection of configurable parameters. They are as follows: Source Drive(s) In this field you should type a list of all the drives from which you wish to take your backup. For example, "CDEF" in this field would cause FLEXIBAK Plus to backup from drives C, D, E and F. The field may contain a list of up to twenty source drives. Please note that any changes made in this field will not have any effect until either FLEXIBAK Plus is exited and restarted or the Re-Log Disk(s) option in the Utilities menu is used. Destn Drive This field should contain the drive to which you wish to backup, such as "A" or "B". Please note that if this is set to anything other than "A" or "B", the Erase Disk option will be disabled. This is to prevent the accidental deletion of vital data. Update File Archive Flag? If this is set to "Y", the Archive Flag on each file is cleared as it is backed up and is checked when logging on to detect whether the file has changed or not. If it is set to "N", the Archive Flag is not cleared, and neither is it checked when logging on. Backup Hidden Files? If you have any hidden files that you wish to backup, then you should set this field to "Y". Otherwise leave it set to "N". Save Data File After Each Disk? This is a security option which, when set to "Y", causes FLEXIBAK Plus to save its data file after processing each disk when doing a backup. The default setting is "N". Maximum No Of Files This field contains the maximum number of files that FLEXIBAK Plus can handle. The default value is 4000. You should only alter this field if your computer is short of memory or you have more than 4000 files on your hard disk(s). Changes do NOT take effect until FLEXIBAK Plus is restarted. Please also see the section of the manual about command line switches. Maximum No Of Directories This field contains the maximum number of directories that FLEXIBAK Plus can handle. The default value is 300. You should only alter this field if your computer is short of memory or your hard disk contains more than 300 directories. Changes do NOT take effect until FLEXIBAK Plus is restarted. Please also see the section of the manual about command line switches. Verify Flag On/Off Option This option toggles the DOS Verify Flag on and off. When switched on, any data that is written to disk is immediately re-read and compared with what was written to make sure there were no errors. As this adds on a substantial amount of time and the probability of errors is so slight, I would advise leaving this option set to its default of Off. Sound On/Off Option This option simply toggles any sound effects on and off. Very useful for those of us who work at home late at night and don't wish to wake up the rest of the family. Utilities Menu Re-Log Disk(s) Option Use this option to Re-Log the disk(s) after you have altered any configuration information such as the source disks or File Specs. Disk Usage Option This option will give you an estimate of the number of disks required to backup all the logged files. The estimate does not take into account the effects of compression which, if set, should significantly reduce the number of disks required. Check Disk Option Use this option from time to time to check up on the state of a backup disk. It will check that the contents of a particular backup disk are what FLEXIBAK Plus thinks they are and, if there are any differences, they will be corrected. Just insert a backup disk and press <ENTER>. The checking procedure is split into two passes. In the first pass, FLEXIBAK Plus will check all the files on the backup disk to make sure they should be there and will delete any that shouldn't be on the disk. In the second pass, FLEXIBAK Plus will check all the files that it thinks should be on the backup disk to make sure they are there and are up to date. At the end, you will be told how many errors occurred and were corrected. Normally this should be zero, but it is possible if the computer is reset or crashes while FLEXIBAK Plus is loaded for errors to occur. In such cases, you should run this option as a matter of course to make sure of the integrity of your backup. Refresh Disk Option If a backup disk is accidentally lost or destroyed, you will need to create a duplicate without having to abandon the entire backup. This option will perform this task for you by tagging any files on the specified disk for Adding and then assuming that the disk has not yet been used. This will mean that when you use the Start Backup option, FLEXIBAK Plus will ask you to insert a blank disk (when it reaches the disk you have refreshed) and will then backup all the files on that disk. Compact Backup Option From time to time, the amount of data on your hard disk drive(s) may decrease. If this happens, the number of backup disks used by FLEXIBAK Plus may be more than are actually required. If you want to release any backup disks for other uses, you should use this option to compact the backup. The effect of this option will be to release the last disk in the backup set and attempt to locate the files on this disk elsewhere. Immediately after using this option, you should use the Start Backup option which will then add the files to other backup disks and you will be able to see whether the compaction was successful or not. Create Queries Option If you have answered any Queries and you wish to go back on your decision, use this option to re-tag for Query any files that are tagged for restoration or deletion. Abandon Backup Option Use this option to completely abandon the current backup and start afresh. This will allow you to take a full backup on a new set of disks. Reports Menu File Specs Option Use this option to produce a report of all the File Specifications that you have set up for the backup. Make sure that your printer is on-line and connected to the computer before running this report. Disk Info Option Use this option to produce a report of the Disk Information. This contains a few handy statistics along with details of the number of files, total size and space free on each disk. Make sure that your printer is on-line and connected to the computer before running this report. Registration Option Use this option to print a registration form which you can send off to register your copy of FLEXIBAK Plus. DOS Menu Inspect Disk Option This option allows you to search through any disk and check the contents of it. I would strongly advise that you use this option before the Erase Disk option when considering erasing a disk. Erase Disk Option This option allows you to erase a disk in preparation to being used as a backup disk. I would strongly advise using the Inspect Disk option first and in any case, this option is disabled if the Destination Drive is not set to either "A" or "B" (use the General Setup option in the Setup menu to set the Destination Drive). This option will fail if the disk contains any read-only files. Exit Option This option terminates FLEXIBAK Plus and returns you to DOS. Before exiting, the data file is saved to the hard disk and then you are prompted to insert the Master Disk (this should be a backup copy of your FLEXIBAK Plus distribution disk). The data file will then be copied to the Master Disk also. This can be avoided by pressing <ESCAPE> when prompted to insert the Master Disk, but it is highly inadvisable to do so as FLEXIBAK Plus will need to use this file in order to restore the backup should you suffer from a hard disk crash. TECHNICAL NOTES Introduction This chapter is written with the intention of giving the more advanced user (i.e. Those who know low level DOS pretty well) a clearer insight into the workings of FLEXIBAK Plus. If you do not understand this chapter, the do not worry - it will not impair your ability to get the most out of FLEXIBAK Plus in any way. Backup File Format In order for FLEXIBAK Plus to be able to handle files of any size, all files over the size of 300k are split into 300k sections, each of which is treated as an individual file by FLEXIBAK Plus. This has a number of implications. First of all, some statistics won't appear to add up. For example, if you run the Disk Information Report, the total number of files backed up will not necessarily be the sum of the number of files on each disk as one file may appear on more than one disk and would therefore be counted more than once. Also, FLEXIBAK Plus may give you the impression that it keeps trying to copy the same file to different disks. It is in fact copying different sections of the same file. When stored on the backup disk, the files contain a header which gives information about its original name and location, its date and time and its size. The file names used on the backup disks are ascending numerical. That is, they are not the same as the name on the source disk. This, along with the fact that some files may be compressed, means that you cannot just copy files from a backup disk manually, you have to use FLEXIBAK Plus or one of the accompanying utilities. Backup Disk Format If you look at a backup disk created by FLEXIBAK Plus, you will notice that it does some rather strange things to the disk, the reason for which I will attempt to explain. First of all, a file is created with the name of the data file being used (such as FLEXPLUS) and the disk number as the extension, for example FLEXPLUS.1 would be disk number 1 of the FLEXPLUS backup set. Next, depending on the size of the disk, a number of directories are created. If the disk is less than or equal to 360k in size, 12 directories are created, whose names are the numbers 0 to 11. If the disk is 720k or less in size, 20 directories are created, whose names are the numbers 0 to 19, and if the disk is larger than this, 40 directories are created whose names are the numbers 0 to 39. The reason for this is to increase the backup speed of FLEXIBAK Plus by making sure that all the directory information is stored at the front of the disk, near the File Allocation Table. Due to the blocking factor of smaller disks being 1k and those of larger disks being only 512 bytes, it is possible to fit up to 30 files in each directory on the smaller disks and up to 14 files in each directory on the larger disks without causing directory fragmentation. This is exactly what FLEXIBAK Plus will do, though if it runs out of space, the last directory will be fragmented to fit any extra files on. UTILITIES Introduction FLEXIBAK Plus comes equipped with some stand alone utilities which enable the viewing and restoration of the backup disk contents without the use of the FLEXPLUS.DAT (or similar) file. This means that, even in the worst case scenario, where you have lost or destroyed the disk containing FLEXPLUS.DAT, you are still able to restore all the data with almost 100% efficiency. I say "almost" because it is always preferable to restore using the data file as that is the only way that FLEXIBAK Plus can be absolutely sure of the backup status of each file. FPDIR FPDIR is a simple utility designed to give a directory of the files contained on a backup diskette. The syntax is simple, simply type: FPDIR x: Where 'x' is the disk drive containing the backup disk. You will then simply be presented with a list of the files backed up on that disk, in the order in which they appear. FPREST FPREST is the utility to use to restore files from backup disks where the backup data file has been lost. FPREST is quite clever in that it will accept a list of file names or DOS style wildcards and restore those files only. The syntax is as follows: FPREST x: file1 file2 ... Where 'x' is the disk drive containing the backup disk. A good example of the use of this utility would be: FPREST A: *.BAT C:\DOS\*.EXE C:\CONFIG.SYS This command would restore all files matching "*.BAT", whatever directory they may be in, all files matching "*.EXE" in the "C:\DOS" directory and "C:\CONFIG.SYS". FPREST works on one disk at a time and reports the names of the files as it restores them. Please be aware that large files can be split over many backup disks and so you must make sure that you run FPREST on all the backup disks in the set to ensure that the whole of any large file (over 300k in size) is properly restored.