========================================================================= (C) 1993 by Atari Corporation, GEnie, and the Atari Roundtables. May be reprinted only with this notice intact. The Atari Roundtables on GEnie are *official* information services of Atari Corporation. To sign up for GEnie service, call (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt.Type XTX99437,GENIE and press [RETURN]. The system will prompt you for your information. ========================================================================== ************ Topic 2 Sun Oct 25, 1992 ORA.TECH at 20:09 EST Sub: Diamond Back II Hard Disk Backup and Restore 200 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 1 Wed Apr 28, 1993 ORA.TECH at 00:54 EDT Diamond Back II will perform backups to Syquest just fine(and very fast too) Just specify the destination partition in a HD to HD backup. You can even back up to a folder. Backing up Syquest to Syquest with only one mechanism is not practical without a very LARGE amount of RAM, it also puts unnecessary wear and tear on the cartridges. Best regards, Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 2 Wed Apr 28, 1993 D.WALTER7 [Doug Walter] at 21:54 EDT Bob, Which reminds me, how about saving that drive/folder specification with the config (save setup?) files. I back up my 15 partitions to Syquest a cuppla times a week, each drive to a different partition over 4 cartridges, and I always forget which drive/name I was using. Works great though. Also - how about a 'GEM" type file/path selector in the source and destination paths for partial restore? I hate typing all the layers in manually. Make too many mistakes :-) Doug7 ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 3 Thu Apr 29, 1993 T.GIRSCH [TJ @ S-Mart] at 01:49 EDT OK, Bob, you asked for it: 1) You've _got_ to do something to make the include/exclude processor friendlier. a) put the include/exclude list in a window, so's I can scroll through it. b) When excluding/including paths, give me an option to exclude/include _just_ this directory, or this directory and everything below it (i.e subsidiary to it). 2) Allow user editable "don't try to compress it" masks. e.g. DBII tries to compress SPX files, which takes valuable time, and it ain't gonna happen. Meanwhile, it doesn't try to compress .TNY files, which (if renamed) compress quite well if renamed. 3) Last time I mentioned it you weren't too keen on the idea, but I'll reiterate: Allow an _option_ that puts small files (e.g. <= 5K) into one big file when using compression. As DBII currently runs, if you have a gazillion small files and you use compression, you get almost no savings, because 999K compresses to 200K, but either way you're still using 1 cluster. If you were to somehow "merge" or "concatenate" these small files, you could save _much_ more space (at least on _my_ backups). Certainly make it optional, and only if compression is used, but _pleeeeeease_ think about including some such option. (By the way: ARC, LZH, ZIP, ZOO, etc., use similar techniques, as I'm sure you're aware). 3b) Expanding on the above, when backing up to floppy, one huge file per disk would be nice, because when used with split files, it would ensure optimum storage. More as I think of them.... - T.J. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 4 Thu Apr 29, 1993 C.NICHOLLS [BILL] at 02:02 EDT I second Doug's suggestion of a GEM type or alterative file selector for partial restorations. I often forget the right name of a file before I have typed it in, and have to go back to look. Bill ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 5 Thu Apr 29, 1993 ORA.TECH at 21:15 EDT Already there Doug :-) (in DB3 that is) Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 6 Thu Apr 29, 1993 D.WALTER7 [Doug Walter] at 23:00 EDT Great, Bob. Now, how long do I have to wait? :-) Doug7 ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 7 Thu Apr 29, 1993 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 23:18 EST >>I second Doug's suggestion of a GEM type or alterative file << >>selector for partial restorations. I often forget the right name << >>of a file before I have typed it in, and have to go back to look. << >> << A user of an ST should NEVER NEVER have to type the name of a file that already exists. We might as well have IBMs... ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 8 Fri Apr 30, 1993 C.MASON10 [Mad Dog] at 01:11 EDT Bob, A minor suggestion for DB III. It has always irritated me that, despite the fact I have two floppy drives, the program pauses after each disk fills up waiting for a keypress. PCTools keeps the floppies busy and as soon as it recognizes a media change starts writing to the new disk. Is it possible to do something like this with DB III? I'd like to be able to put two fresh disks in and do _something_ while they are written. If I come back and one is finished, I'd like to be able to pop a new disk in and have the program continue while I finish doing _something_. Mad Dog ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 9 Fri Apr 30, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 01:13 EDT Mad Dog, you can do that now. Just hit the drive letter when you place the disk in. Brian ... Written on Friday 30 April 1993 at 02:11 a.m. ADT ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 10 Sat May 01, 1993 ORA.TECH at 03:55 EDT Mad Dog - You can have auto continuation onto the next floppy with DBII now. Start the backup with a disk in each drive as soon as th backup starts hit the B key to indicate a disk is ready there. When A is full, the backup will automatically continue onto B without further user intervention so you can walk away while 2 disks are filled, Then while B is working you can put a new disk in Drive A and hit the A key to have DBII automatically continue onto A when B is finished and so on..... While A is working you need to press the B key to indicate it's ready because the ST does not have a reliable active media change detection method like some other systems. Try opening a window for drive A and then changing disks, the system doesn't automatically know there is a different floppy in the drive untill you hit the ESC key to force a media change. I suppose I could have a selectable option for auto continuation that assumes the disk has been changed in the next drive auto continuing to the next drive and checking to verify that the disk has really been changed(actually it already does that to prevent accidently overwriting a backup disk) hmmm... This could be easier than I thought to get rid of the key press requirement. Best regards, Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 11 Sat May 01, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 17:15 EDT Mag Dog, Yes, Diamond Back already supports this. After putting the next disk in the drive just press the drive letter and the status will go to 'Ready...'. It sometimes takes a few presses.... ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 12 Sat May 01, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 20:07 EDT Bob, A/B; I used to use FLASHBACK and it didn't need to be told to change disks. It would also check that the disk you inserted was not one which was part of your present back up session. When both disks were full a bell would ring for me to come into the room and stick in two new disks. This was nice. However I must state that I am much happier with DB II as it is much faster and uses half the disks. ;-) ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 13 Sun May 02, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 20:13 EDT Bob, The idea of a continual backup session without having to hit the drive letters sounds like a great idea. It would be a worth while addition to an already great backup package. I've just installed an Archive 250Meg tape drive on my machine so I'm anxiously awaiting for DB III.... :) ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 14 Sun May 02, 1993 C.MASON10 [Mad Dog] at 21:35 EDT Brian, Well, I'll be. I've always sat here like a bump on a log waiting to hit return! Is that in the docs? I'll have to look again. I must admit I only resort to them when all else fails. Mad Dog ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 15 Sun May 02, 1993 BRIAN.H [ST~SysOp] at 21:45 EDT Mad Dog, If you anything like me, and for you I hope you not [grin], you have so many manuals that it is impossible to remember/discover everything. That's the beauty of having topics and developers like this. Brian ... Written on Sunday 02 May 1993 at 10:42 p.m. ADT ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 17 Mon May 03, 1993 C.MASON10 [Mad Dog] at 01:39 EDT Bob and Stargazer, Thanks for the info. Aladdin lag bit me as Brian had already explained the procedure to me prior to my posting. While the 'hit the drive key' method will work and was something I was ignorant of, I still feel a continuous backup with media change recognition is the way to go. That is provided TOS and the Atari architecture allow this to be done reliably. Regardless Bob, I love DB II and it has saved my bacon several times. I'm looking forward to upgrading to DB III when it's available. Mad Dog ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 18 Mon May 03, 1993 C.MASON10 [Mad Dog] at 01:58 EDT Brian, That's a _very_ accurate assessment of my situation! Mad Dog ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 19 Wed May 12, 1993 ORA.TECH at 00:29 EDT I have been notified of and have confirmed a bug in Diamond Back II. This bug is restricted to: Compressed backups to High Density disks Formatted on an IBM PC with MS-DOS 5.0 or MS-DOS 6.0 yeilding disks with 1 sector per cluster. These disks will have FAT tables written as if they were standard Atari 2 sector per cluster disks making them unusable. Uncompressed backups to High Density disks formatted with MS-DOS 5.0 with 1 sector per cluster are not effected. Compressed backups to High Density disks with Atari standard 2 sectors per cluster are not effected. Near term solution when doing compressed backups to high density disks with 1 sector per cluster: 1) Whenever you get new high density disks, reformat them on an Atari to make sure that you are using 2 sector per cluster high density disks. You can have DB2 do this during the backup. 2) If you must use 1 sector per cluster high density disks for your backup, then backup in uncompressed mode. This bug is fixed in Diamond Back 3. We regret any inconvenience that this may have caused anyone. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 20 Wed May 12, 1993 CBARRON at 02:57 EDT On the subject of formatting, HOW do I get db 2.5 to format HIGH DENISTY disks on my TT030. DFORMAT and the desktop will format the disks, that DBack states are 'unusable' (so far 100% of the disks I attempt to format in DB are 'unusable'.) Am I missing a patch or is this a bug in current versions? TT 030 codekeys/maccel3/dongle (dynacad dongle fix for screen savers...) in auto folder. Xcontrol and Multidesk deluxe as accs. TT med resolution. Use and run in TTram flags set. Also how about returning the fonts back to normal? Fonts on the desktop after exiting DB are modified. As they are in Dformat if some buttons, like help are pressed. Then it no longer shows track being formatted. (in DFORMAT.PRG) ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 21 Wed May 12, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 07:52 EDT Bob, That sounds like a rather rare bug. I'm surprised anyone found it. Are you sure it doesn't show up only when there's a full moon? If the date was 4/1, we'd suspect you were putting us on. Ken Van Dellen d8^) ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 22 Thu May 13, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 00:50 EDT Thanks Bob..... After I saw your message above about the confirmation of the bug, I took a disk from a box of new HD Verbatim diskettes (formatted with MS-DOS 3.3) and tried a compressed backup and the FREE DISK SPACE field on the Diamond Back screen went negative. I could never pinpoint the problem since I have a variety of formats on my backup diskettes (a few IBM format but mostly ST format). I do appreciate the time and effort to pinpoint what the problem was..... ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 23 Thu May 13, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 01:19 EDT CBARRON, I have a MegaSTE with a 1.44 drive and I only use Diamond Format and have not had any problems with Diamond Back 2.5 reading the diskettes..... I have also had the problem with Diamond Back changing the fonts occasionally. I figured that it might have something to do with Warp 9 (since I use it to change my desktop font) but I don't see that listed in your message. If yours acts like mine, the system font gets changed to the normal icon size font and nothing beyond rebooting the desktop will restore the font to its original size.... Ken, Hey, I'm one of the people who ran across the bug!! I've got a brand new box of Verbatim HD diskettes which every disk would be effected if I tried to do a compressed backup. I also suspect that most boxes of preformatted HD diskettes that can be bought off the shelf these days would exhibit the same problem..... :) ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 24 Fri May 14, 1993 ORA.TECH at 02:01 EDT CBARRON - Formatting HD disks within DBII works fine in V2.51. Older versions had the "Standard Format" broke, but others(twisted, etc) work OK. The Fonts bit was a b*%ch to figure out and the solution proves that truth is often stranger than fiction. The situation was that on some TT's the system font got screwed up after exiting DFORMAT when formatting high density disks. I was very perplexed because formatting disks is a very benign kind of thing to do. Anyway, after a disk is formatted, you need to write zero's the area occupied by the FAT tables and Root directory. On these few TT's with High Density floppies (and a few Falcons which is how I finally verified it and figured it out) if you write over 15 consectutive sectors starting at logical sector 1 with a single Rwabs call the system font gets screwed up. Riddle me that Batman. Solution was as simple as breaking the write into two seperate calls to Rwabs. There is no resonable explaination. Truth is somtimes stranger than fiction. In my copius free time I'll upload DFORMAT 2.4. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 25 Fri May 14, 1993 CBARRON at 02:25 EDT Stargazer, I can format via diamond format or the desktop and all is well, but if I accidently don't happen to have the proper # of preforamtted HD floppies, DBII.5 does not format them. It says 'bad media'. I DO NOT USE warp9,so warp9 is not the problem. Only MDD and Xcontrol. as permanent accs. Text size is increased so that messages no longer print in there entire length. Nothing short of a warm reboot solves the font problem. MDD and Xcontrol do not affect the font size of any other program, I use so I doublt if they are a problem. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 26 Fri May 14, 1993 D.OWENS at 21:56 EDT Bob I would like to know if there is anyway to back-up to 1.44 disk on the InSite as drive N. If I back-up to one and it gets the size right but after it fills the disk it gives me a disk error. Thanks Denver ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 27 Fri May 14, 1993 ORA.TECH at 23:52 EDT CBARRON - DBII V2.51 formats high density disks just fine in all modes(twisted etc.). earlier versions had "standard" format broken. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 28 Tue May 18, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 04:59 EDT Just got in the mail the "Oregon Research News." Nicely done. The same for Oregon's product cataloge. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 29 Tue May 18, 1993 AEO.7 [Gregg] at 20:46 EDT Bob, dittos on the excellent press package. So tell me, gonna send me any 'demo' goodies???? Also a VERY GOOD thing.... listing ST/STe, TT, Falcon compatibility on each of the programs listed. Take care; Gregg ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 30 Tue May 18, 1993 SFRT-ASST [Kenne@SFRT] at 22:57 EDT What did you use to make the catalog? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 31 Wed May 19, 1993 NEVIN-S at 21:08 EDT Yes, EXCELLENT brochure. Congrats! It was done using a Mac or IBM, right? --Nevin ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 32 Sat May 22, 1993 ORA.TECH at 00:10 EDT The artwork for the product brochure was done by a local graphics arts house. I do not know what tools they used, but I sure like the results. Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 33 Sat May 22, 1993 SFRT-ASST [Kenne@SFRT] at 01:18 EDT Thanks! ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 34 Mon Jun 07, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 10:02 EDT Warning! I'm angry. I've been making incremental backups of my word processing partition. Every day I do it and add several new small files. Today, I got a message, "This is not the last disk in a saveset." But it is! And the disk is still 90% unused. What does DBII look for to come up with such a false statement? There is nothing wrong with the disk or my partition according to Diamond Edge. I had the same problem a month ago and overwrote the disk. This time I just added a new disk but the other disk is still almost empty and DBII won't recognize it. What gives here? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 35 Wed Jun 09, 1993 ORA.TECH at 01:49 EDT Joe - What is happening is that your ST is not correctly identifing a media change and is not returning the correct volume information to DB2. Thus DB2 says it's not the last disk. All ST's are flaky at detecting a media change in a floppy, some mor than others. The method used to determine media change in these models are inherently unreliable. There is nothing wrong with the dat on the disk and DB2 will recognize it on restore. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 36 Wed Jun 09, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 06:01 EDT I think that the solution to this media change problem is that when it occurs, one of the options a user should have is to use the disc anyways. Presently, DB2 will refuse to use it and I have no way to force it to. Why not add this option? Otherwise I had to waste time dragging files to the new disc that DB2 will recognize. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 37 Tue Jun 15, 1993 M.STEFANI [MCH] at 10:50 EDT Bob, I'm new to this topic, so excuse any redundancy in my questions: 1) Is there a way to "modify" any .INF files? They appear to be simple ASCII files, but when I've tried to change them from a text editor, DB2 no longer recognizes the file. Hope I'm missing something, because it's a pain to have to recreate them from scratch (with include/exclude masks, etc...) 2) Just when is the approximate release date for DB3? Mark @ VISION Music ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 38 Wed Jun 16, 1993 ORA.TECH at 00:44 EDT Mark, DB2 INF rfiles are binary and not editable. DB3's will be ASCII and editable. DB3 release is delayed several months due to the DATAlite introduction. We expect a mid summer release. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 39 Wed Jun 16, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 03:29 EDT Mark, Text editors often hide control characters, and when they save data back to a file they often save it without the same control characters. Al ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 40 Sat Jun 26, 1993 O-ZONE [Flakes] at 22:29 EDT Would anyone like to know what happened today when I tried to run Diamondback on a Falcon 030 in ST high resolution in 256 color mode? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 43 Sun Jun 27, 1993 O-ZONE [Flakes] at 15:20 EDT It worked. Nice assortment of colors too. Th only difference was when the list of paths scrolled it "smeared" a little. I didn't actually back anything up just ran the program and loded an .INF file. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 44 Sat Jul 03, 1993 AEO.7 [Gregg] at 20:21 EDT I'm afraid the 'smear' on the scrolling text has little to do with the program. Though rumor has it that the new TOS 4.04 may have a fix for it, current Falcon TOS (4.02) blits the text scroll 'one bit plane' at a time and on the multi plane modes this tends to fight with the vertical refresxh (60 Hz) causing a brief display of two multi-color lines of text for each text line. Until this is fixed via TOS and/or Warp 9 I'm afraid we'll just have to live with it for now. Besides, the 2-color mode is so much nicer (and faster) than the 256 color version . Gregg ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 45 Sun Jul 04, 1993 A.STUDER1 [Andy] at 00:02 EDT I would just like to say that I've been using DBII on my Falcon every week and haven't had any problems yet! Thanks for such a great job! ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 46 Mon Jul 05, 1993 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 00:54 EDT Just discovered something in Diamond Mirror 1.1 -- don't know if it's a bug or what. For what it's worth, here it is: Even tho I have Mirror run daily, every week when I do my HD backup, I re-run Mirror and save the partition information to both my HD and to a floppy. I've found that if I run Mirror with the default config (in my case, my HD) and then, without exiting the Mirror screen, change the data line to save to the floppy, Mirror responds with "Cannot open DMIRROR.PRG." However, if I then exit Mirror,re-enter it, and change the data line to the floppy, Mirror works just fine. Just thought I'd report this. -Gerry ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 47 Mon Jul 05, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 15:43 EDT Thanks Gerry, It sounds like a default path confusion. Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 50 Sun Aug 01, 1993 P.GRIFFITH2 [PGRIF] at 14:42 EDT Help! I used DB II to back up one 70 meg drive to another 40 meg drive. I compressed the data. Can I restore the data from the 40 meg back to the 70 meg. The RESTORE option won't let pick the source if it's not drive A or B. Have I lost all of my data? I do have a three week old floppy backup, but much has changed on my system since then. What is the purpose of being able to backup to a hard drive partition if you can't restore it? Thanks. Paul ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 51 Sun Aug 01, 1993 L.DOWDLE1 [Scott Dowdle] at 17:27 EDT P.GRIFFITH2 [PGRIF], > Can I restore the data from the 40 meg back to the 70 meg. What you need to do is use the Partial restore option and choose the source drive/path and the destination path! TYL, Scott ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 52 Sun Aug 01, 1993 P.GRIFFITH2 [PGRIF] at 18:38 EDT Scott, Thanks for the suggestion, but I have 4 partitions worth of data on the 40 megger and it's compressed. The file selector won't even show me the file names, and giving G:\ as the source and C:\ as the destination does not work. DB tries to put all of the 40 meg(Drive G) onto the 5 meg C partition. I'll keep trying. Paul ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 53 Mon Aug 02, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 01:17 EDT PGRIF, Please restate your setup. If you are trying to restore the 40meg of info to your 70 meg, why would you restore to your 5meg C: partition. Your destination should be the 70 meg partition. Hope I can help with more info. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 54 Tue Aug 03, 1993 R.HOEKSTRA1 [RandyH] at 00:32 EDT re: 40meg to 70meg restore problem Bob, I had the same 'problem' just tonight. I had backed up 5 partitions of my 130 Meg fixed drive onto a 44 Meg cart. The 130 Meg drive died a couple of weeks ago and just got it back from the shop today. I thought I would be able to just 'say' restore the 5 partitions from the 44 Meg cart, but as PGRIF said, FULL RESTORE only allows restoring from floppy drive. I ended up doing partial restores, but because I backed up by selecting all 5 partions and sending them all to the 44 Meg, it didn't know what partition was what (ie all the files in the root dirs of the 5 partitions went to the root dir of the 44 meg drive). The only way I was able to restore was by digging out a file list that I had saved and telling it to restore specific files and then setting source and dest paths for the folders. I guess it was my fault for the way I did the backup, but I think the documentation could be a bit clearer on this (perhaps a warning). I have now redone the backup by saving each partition to a unique folder on the 44 Meg. Now if I have to restore I should be able to set source to that folder and dest to the appropriate partition. Correct? RandyH ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 55 Wed Aug 04, 1993 L.DOWDLE1 [Scott Dowdle] at 06:15 EDT P.GRIFFITH2, > The file selector won't even show me the file names, and giving G:\ > as the source and C:\ as the destination does not work. DB tries > to put all of the 40 meg(Drive G) onto the 5 meg C partition. Are you telling me that you did multiple partition backups with the destination as G:? Does this mean that all of your backup folders and files for all partitions are mixed together on G:? I would suggest that in the future you do partition backups to specific folders to keep them separate. That way you can do the restores that you want. examples... Source Destination --------- -------------- C:\*.* G:\DRIVE_C\ D:\*.* G:\DRIVE_D\ E:\*.* G:\DRIVE_E\ Of course you will have to specify the correct source and destination paths in both the backup and partial restore dialogues but it'll work the way you want it to. (grin) Too bad that does nothing for you now... since everything is mixed together and compressed. All I can suggest is that you create a folder for each drive (like shown above) and move everything into the folder it should go to separate the contents of each partition... then do the partial restore I mentioned earlier! Let me know if that works, ok!? TYL, Scott ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 56 Wed Aug 04, 1993 P.GRIFFITH2 [PGRIF] at 22:34 EDT Scott, Indeed, I did NOT create folders for the individual drives on my destination drive. I have already done as you suggest and sorted everything into newly created folders on my 40 meg drive and restored it all back. As I look back on the weekend, I realize that not much that I did had the benefit of thinking first and then doing. Not being able to find the DB manual didn't help, but I talked to Bob on the phone and he got me up and running and maybe a bit smarter. Thanks for help. Paul ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 57 Thu Aug 05, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 03:03 EDT Yes, I agree that restoring from a HD to HD backup when sending multiple source partitions to desitination folders is a pain. Beat abou the hard and shoulders with blunt instruments(please) It most certainly is a great deal more elegant in DB3. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 58 Thu Aug 05, 1993 MUSE [Tomas] at 10:20 EDT Bob, Well, let us have it, man! ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 59 Thu Aug 05, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 22:52 EDT Bob, I've got two tape drives here that are just anticipating the arrival of DB3!!! One of these drives is a TEAC streaming cassette drive (identical to the ones used in the ICD tape backup systems). Will DB3 work properly with these drives???? Also, I hope that you received that box of disk back that you sent me back when we were researching that 1/2 sector per block bug a while back... ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 60 Sun Aug 15, 1993 AEO.7 [Gregg] at 17:44 EDT Bob.... PLEASE!!!!!!! How much longer before we can get our hands on DB3? I plan on upgrading as soon as I can get the check on it's way to you... Unless you give discounts to bug finders .... Gregg ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 61 Sun Aug 15, 1993 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 21:21 EDT Bob -- A curiosity question: how come, when I do an incremental hard drive backup to another hard drive, Diamond Back runs both hard drives, even when it's not writing to the receiving hard drive? I've noticed that the light on my SyQuest (the receiving hard drive) flashes like crazy through the whole "search for new files" sequence. - Gerry ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 62 Mon Aug 16, 1993 C.OATES2 [Chris] at 02:18 EDT I'm having a rather strange problem with Diamond back v.2.51. I get chronic "bad disk" problems with disks that format and work fine under the desktop. THis isn't much of a problem, but it isn't the only one. When I finish a backup, or when I abort one because of disk problems, the system font after that becomes a double height version of the 6 point font. All the words in the DB main dialog appear in this font, and when I quit all the menus show up in this as well. I tried to run Aladdin to see if running another application would fix the problem, and it told me that "Aladdin needs an 80 column display" Well, I'm running in 640 x 480 monochrome on my Crazy Dots, do I don't see why it wouldn't be 80 columns. Just did a check. I ran it on a clean system (no acc or Auto prgs besides XBOOT) in ST High, did one disk of a backup (no errors on the disk) hit "quit" and after the confirming dialog, the font was messed up. I'm using a MegaSTE TOS 2.06, 1.44 Meg Floppy drive, and using 1.44 meg floppies. Any ideas? ~Chris ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 63 Mon Aug 16, 1993 R.WATSON15 [Wayne Watson] at 05:15 EDT Chris, same goes here with 2.06, 1.44meg MSTE. It also happens when I do stuff with DL using 1.44meg disk. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 64 Tue Aug 17, 1993 D.HADLAND [STUSER] at 01:00 EDT Hello! I Just Backup some of my partitions to floptical using the compression with verify on. It did its job fine, so I thought. When I bought a new hard drive mechanism, I changed the sizes of all my par titions(Larger). When I put the backup files back to the hard drive every file 40K and over came up with a CRC error and the file was lost. I would believe this may be a bug in Diamond Back, but I am not sure, It could be something to do with the floptical. It is hooked to the back of my hard drives (last in chain). I did have to move the lun # to 3. It was on #2 when I did the back up. So I hope if I post this here maybe some one could shed some light on this matter. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 65 Tue Aug 17, 1993 JRH [Roger] at 07:55 EDT D.HADLAND [STUSER], I just had a similar problem, except mine cropped up when I was trying to get DataLite2 going (which has now successfully happened). Robb@ORA helped me sort out the problem. Maybe you have the same situation. I have partitioned my floptical disks with the STANDARD selection from the ICD format menu. That creates a disk with 4 sectors per cluster, which DBII does not like when doing a backup to flopticals in compressed mode. Uncompressed seems to work ok. The solution is to partition the floptical with the ATARI button selected - that gives 2 sectors/cluster, and makes DBII happy. I have just finished testing a restore after having backed up a full partition, compressed on flopticals set up in ATARI mode, and the backup works fine. Robb mentioned that he may try to get a patch out to fix this. I guess it depends on whether they can get DB3 out the door sooner than he could get a patch put together. Another thing that helps reduce CRC errors is short doubly shielded cables. If you are using a TT, finding an 18 inch double shielded SCSI cable is not a big deal. If you are using an ST, finding short DMA cables looks like it may be impossible. However, I have the standard length cables on my setup and it seemed to be ok once I re-partitioned the flopticals. Hope this helps. - Roger ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 66 Wed Aug 18, 1993 C.UNDERWOOD1 [CARSON] at 00:53 EDT I'm thinking about purchasing Diamond Back, but I have a few questions. I have an Insite floptical drive & want to use DB to back up my flopticals to other flopticals. The way I do it now is to use a large RAM disk (3.5MB). I fill up the RAM disk, then switch flopticals & copy the contents of the RAM disk to the "back up" floptical. I go thru this routine until I have the disk backed up. Will I be able to use DB to do this? Can I use compression & split files (between RAM disks)? I downloaded the demo & got the impression that this scenerio could not be done. Also when will DBIII be out & how much will it be? Thanks in advance to all who reply. Carson ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 67 Wed Aug 18, 1993 ORA.TECH [Robb] at 02:27 EDT As the saying goes - Real soon now. All kidding aside, hopefully with my taking some of the support work on, Bob will have more time to put the finishing touches on DB3. (pssst. . . It looks great!) Roger, Just to clarify, there are two of us who post support here: Bob - He's the one who writes the programs, runs the business, etc. and me, Robb, I'm just support, and though I do my best to give people all the help I can, I don't want to take Bob's credit away from him ;'] BTW, your suggestions for flopticals were on the mark. Robb at ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 68 Thu Aug 19, 1993 R.PLAGGENBUR [Ralph / WA] at 19:17 EDT Bob; I called your office today and asked a question that didn't quite get answered by the person that answered the phone, so I thought I would ask it here...I'm sure it's simple ! I have drive C formatted at 32 megs. I want to back everything up with DBII and then re-format drive C to maybe 12 megs. Using compression ,,, what will happen when I reach 12 megs? Wait, I leaving myself open for the obvious "It'll say disk full".. what I want to know is how to do the back up so that I could put part of the old C onto the new C and part onto the new D. Ralph ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 69 Sat Aug 21, 1993 ORA.TECH [Robb] at 21:22 EDT Gerry, DBII is simply preparing to write to the dest. HD, and if you are not using file lists, then it is comparing what you have on your source to what you have on your dest to see what to backup. Ralph, The easiest way to accomplish this would be to do a partial backup of the first 10-12 megs of current drive C, then do a separate partial backup of the remainder. Then reformat, put the first b/u on new drive C, and the second on new drive D. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 70 Mon Aug 23, 1993 G.LEONE [Gerry] at 00:42 EDT Thanks for the explanation, Robb! -Gerry ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 71 Mon Aug 23, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 13:23 EDT The Font screw up bit is one of the curisoities(bugs) of TOS. On high densitiy drives if you write more than 11 consectuive sectors(like if your zeroing a FAT table for instance) starting at sector 1 using Rwabs immediately after exit from a floptfmt call then TOS screws up the system font. Break teh rwabs call into two seperate calls of less tha 11 sectors and the world is fine. Isn't TOS wonderful. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 72 Wed Aug 25, 1993 M.STEFANI [MCH] at 10:55 EDT Is there a 'release' date for DBIII as yet? I really enjoy DBII and am really anticipating the new upgrade! Mark Stefani ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 73 Wed Aug 25, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 19:18 EDT I am trying not to say too much about DB3 release. It looked for awhile like Glendale, but now I doubt it. We will at least show it at Glendale. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 74 Sun Aug 29, 1993 M.PFEIFER [Warthog] at 10:53 EDT Greetings Bob, I have just run across a problem when trying to back-up my Megafile 30 using DB2 V2.41. I have three 10-Meg partitions that I want to back-up without compression, encryption, or formatting of disks. I have the validation file listed properly and the backup list as well. All discs are formatted and blank. When I start the back-up, it goes to the first file and immediately comes up with the box message "DOS error #-1. Open c:\auto\warp9_st.prg. Try again/Continue/Quit". If I select "Try again" or "Continue", it skips to the next file and comes up with the same message. I let it do this for 50 files before I quit the backup. I tried the DB2 format option, tried backing up D- drive, disabled the drive validation and backup list options, checked all drives for bad data/clusters/etc..., and ran my virus program to check for that, nothing would fix this problem. The thing that really gets me is I have used the program since I bought this computer (used) and it has never done this before. I am able to back the files manually from the desktop so I don't think there is any problem with drives or interfaces. Got any ideas or helpful hints? Warthog P.S. I couldn't find a listing of DOS error codes in my ST owner's manual. Can you tell me what DOS error #-1 means???? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 75 Mon Aug 30, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 01:09 EDT You have something in your system that has eaten all of the available open files. Thus DB2 could not open the file for read. 2,41 is VERY odl you should also upgrade to 2,51 via free patches here on Genie. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 76 Fri Sep 03, 1993 M.PFEIFER [Warthog] at 23:41 EDT Bob, The only DB2 upgrade I could find was from 2.42 to 2.50. Unfortunately, I have version 2.41. Do you know where I can get the older upgrade so I can use the newer upgrade? Thanks for any help you can give! Warthog ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 77 Mon Sep 06, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 10:01 EDT Bob, I think you answered this for me before, but.... I seem to be unable to restore a single file. I get the message that the restoration is complete, but the file isn't back. How does this work? Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 78 Mon Sep 06, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 12:43 EDT Ken Van, have you searched your HD to see if the file has not been replaced at some unexpected place. The file will be replaced where you have set the Destination Path. There is a file search utility within Diamond Back. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 79 Mon Sep 06, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 21:15 EDT See Flat, I did a partial restore like this: Source I:\NEWDESK.INF Dest. C:\NEWDESK.INF As far as I could tell, it didn't happen. I finally restored the whole drive. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 80 Tue Sep 07, 1993 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:17 EDT Ken, Since your NEWDESK.INF file was corrupted, it is not particularly surprising that the restore didn't work. A bad NEWDESK/DESKTOP.INF file can do some VERY strange things to GEM/TOS. I have had many 'opportunities' to restore single files, and/or folders with Diamond Back and had no problems with it. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 81 Tue Sep 07, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 10:20 EDT Ken Van, I guess Bob should take over. I think you only had to type C:\ as destination. Did you end up with a NEWDESK.INF folder on your c partition. When I want to replace a single file I usually use the "restore single file" feature. It has worked everytime. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 82 Wed Sep 08, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 00:39 EDT Warthog: There should be a V2.41 to V2.42 patch here on Genie. Ken: Source and Desintation lines are Paths only In the partial restore select "Specific Files" and enter either the specific file name or a wildcard that captures it. Do Source I:\ Dest C:\ Specific File:NEWDESK.INF Will get much simplier in a month or so. Best regards, Bob@ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 83 Wed Sep 08, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 07:27 EDT Thanks for the help, guys. It appears there is more than one way to restore a single file and I picked the hard way. I'm just very thankful for DB. I wiped a hard drive a couple of times before I got DB because I heard the backup programs available then were unreliable, and I didn't want to lose things. Of course, not backing up lost it all. I did sometimes copy very important files to floppy. Now I have total confidence in DB. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 84 Sat Sep 11, 1993 L.WHITE17 [Lorne] at 12:56 EDT My dealing seams to be having a tough time getting me a copy of Diamond Back II. Is it in limited distribution until III comes out ? I'm sure I'll love the enhancements, but for the time being the compression onto floppies is all I'm after. Please let me know if my dealer and their source are just have some weak connections or if their is a back log. We are talking Western Canada here. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 85 Tue Sep 14, 1993 ORA.TECH [Robb] at 00:35 EDT Lorne, Please send us the name and address of the dealer, and ask him to contact us at (503) 620-4919. We do have DBII available. In the mean time you are welcome to order a copy direct. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 86 Wed Sep 15, 1993 L.WHITE17 [Lorne] at 22:43 EDT As it turns out they have had the program for the last two weeks and were waiting for my order of Atari works to also come in. I'll be giving it a go in the next few days. I'm sure it will live up to my expectations. Thanks for the response. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 87 Thu Sep 16, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 06:38 EDT I just had another repeat of a problem I get every so often with DBII. I asked DBII to do an incremental backup. But I get a message saying, "This is not the last disk in a saveset. Do you want to [CONTINUE] [TRY ANOTHER]. Nothing I do can convince DBII that in fact that ***is*** the last disk in a saveset. There is nothing wrong with the disk and it is less than half full. There should be a third option in the above message which allows me to convince DBII that the disk is OK. Otherwise I have to start all over again with a brand new saveset. This is a real pain. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 88 Sat Sep 18, 1993 J.WHITCOMB3 at 16:58 EDT Pardon me if this has been brought up before but... When I use the stand alone Diamond Formatter on my Falcon it locks up after a few mouse clicks. Has anyone else seen this? -Jonathan ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 89 Sun Sep 19, 1993 B.SEMAAN [BOSEM] at 09:33 EDT Jonathan- My Falcon also chokes on Diamond Formatter. Ashame too, since its the only stand alone prg I have that does 20 sec/trk formatting. -Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 90 Sun Sep 19, 1993 P.KILLIAN [Pete K] at 16:27 EDT Bob and Jonathan: I also have a more minor problem with Diamond format program on my Falcon. It doesn't lock up for me but does mess up the half-height font on icons when I exit (some are almost unreadale). My copy of Diamond Format came with Diamond Back II (now at version 2.51). Do either of you use fpatch, backward, or any other compatibility program on your machines? I am using fpatch (was pre-installed on my machine when I got it) -- maybe that is the difference. -- Pete [Atarian Mind] ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 91 Sun Sep 19, 1993 GRMEYER [Gordon/Sysop] at 18:23 EDT ORA - I purchased DBII yesterday and today I've been getting it up and running on my system. Previously I've always used GOOD Backup, but that doesn't work very elegantly with a floptical so I switched to your product. My question: Is there an option to have DBII delete files in the backup saveset that are no longer on the active drive? How can I eliminate backups of files that I've long since deleted? Gordon ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 92 Mon Sep 20, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 07:06 EDT Gordon, I had the same question about deleted files you had. The answer was they stay there. I ordinarily do a partial backup, but occasionally zero the sector on my backup copy and do a full backup. It's a little scary for a while to be without a backup copy, though. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 93 Mon Sep 20, 1993 B.JENSEN1 [BJ] at 11:12 EDT I'm agree with Gordon. An option to have DBII delete files in the backup saveset that are no longer on the active drive is a much desired feature. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 94 Mon Sep 20, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 18:52 EDT I dont' understand. Why don't you open the disk of the saveset with the file you wish to delete, and delelte it. Although files are compressed you can phisically see them in the same paths that you have backed them from. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 95 Mon Sep 20, 1993 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 22:06 EDT When is Diamond Back III due out? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 96 Mon Sep 20, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 22:37 EDT Yes, one could use, say, MaxiFile, and compare the present disk and the saveset, and delete the ones we don't want from the saveset. Of course, that wouldn't be automatic, but it would give us one last look if we wanted it. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 97 Wed Sep 22, 1993 B.SEMAAN [BOSEM] at 08:31 EDT See Flat & Ken Van- I don't think you realize that many of the backup prgs that delete old files from savesets will also use the space that has been freed up for backing up new files and thus save diskette space. If I remember correctly, it seems the Vault had an option to also overwrite older versions of files with newer ones. These are features that I for one miss when I switched to DB a few years back. Bob L.- Any chance of the above mentioned features being in DB III? Or if not, what about differential backups ala Norton & PC Tools. -Bob S. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 98 Wed Sep 22, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 23:29 EDT Bob S., That was what I was hoping for, actually. No point in having files deleted on the working disk taking up space on the backup disk. It might be a good idea to have the option of skipping deletes, just in case someone has second thoughts. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 99 Mon Sep 27, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 14:51 EDT All, Diamond Back 3 should be out in 6-8 weeks, and does include a comparative backup feature. I will pass on the other suggestions to Bob. Regards, Robb at ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 100 Tue Sep 28, 1993 OUTRIDER [Terry] at 00:29 EDT That's great news, Robb! I just backed up my 105 meg drive and was longing for DB3, not that DB2 isn't great in its own right. :^) __ /erry .\\ay ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 101 Wed Sep 29, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 01:25 EDT Robb, 6-8 WEEKS!!!! Arggggg!!!! ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 102 Sat Oct 02, 1993 W.ORTIZ [Will] at 08:34 EDT Stargazer! Hi! hehe...I just saw your message. Yup! 6-8 weeks! That's between 3,628,800 seconds to 4,838,400 seconds from now.... Will W.ORTIZ P.S. Patience is a virtue. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 103 Sat Oct 02, 1993 GRMEYER [Gordon/Sysop] at 21:12 EDT I'm _very_ pleased to hear that DB3 will have the ability to delete old files from the back-up saveset. Knowing that it's 8 weeks away doesn't help my disappointment that it's not in DB2 however. I guess I should have shopped a little more carefully before purchasing DB2. It looks to be a fine program, but the lack of this feature is enough to keep me from using it. Add me to the list of people eagerly awaiting DB3. (sigh) ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 104 Sat Oct 02, 1993 J.MORRISON38 [~ Jimmo ~] at 21:52 EDT Oregon... What tape drives will the new version of DB support? I would assume it will support the TEAC 155 (ICD's) streaming drive. How about the TEAC 600 meg version? How about SCSI QIC drives, such as WANGTEK and ARCHIVE (CONNER now?)? While I'm asking, how about any of the PARALLEL port drives? Will you be marketing any of the drives yourself? Thanx, ~ Jimmo ~ ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 105 Mon Oct 04, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 18:48 EDT Hi Will ..... Don't mind my impatience. I've been waiting for this package since the beginning of summer and don't intend to give up on it now!!! ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 106 Tue Oct 05, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 13:20 EDT Jimmo, DB3 has full SCSI tape drive support, so any of the drives you named will work fine, excepting the parallel port. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 107 Thu Oct 07, 1993 J.REYNOLDS26 [James] at 00:07 EDT Will DE and DBII see a drive of removable media if that media is not yet formatted? I'm trying to run down the prolem with my new Fujitsu 2511 128Mb magneto optical. Thanks. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 108 Fri Oct 08, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 07:49 EDT I just want to report that I've been able to restore individual files. I was trying to do it by typing the source (with file name) and destination in the two lines at the top of the screen, but without putting the names in the restore selected files (or whatever it's called) section. When I do that and just put the paths in the top lines it works fine. Easy if you know how! Thanks for the help (some time ago). Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 109 Thu Oct 14, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 05:16 EDT I have the following recurring problem with DBII- First I do a full back up of a partition. Then every week or so I do an incremental. But then after several such incrementals- DBII refuses to recognize the current floppy even though it is nowhere near full. There is nothing wrong with the floppy as I check them with every utility program I have including DE. So I end up having to start all over again. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 110 Fri Oct 15, 1993 C.OATES2 [Chris] at 01:11 EDT Question: as I am now the owner of both a MegaSTE and a Falcon in need of backing up, I noticed in the license agreement for DBII that I am allowed to use it "on a single computer". Is there a reduced rate or way to purchase a second license without a second package? If I use a networking system like PowerNet and back up one HD over this network, is this still a voilation of the agreement? ~Chris ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 111 Fri Oct 15, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 13:25 EDT Joe, I believe this may have been discussed before, that your machine appears to have a problem with detecting a media change, therefore, it doesn't realise that the correct floppy is in the drive. Hopefully DBIII will do more to try to force your machine to see the disk (DBII already tries pretty hard :') ) Chris O. If you are simply backing up to an HD over the net, this is fine. If you need to install the SOFTWARE on more than one machine, give us a call voice, and we will work something out. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 112 Sat Oct 16, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 07:17 EDT Bob, Since many of us own more than one machine, how about sharing with all of us what you think we should do to be legal. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 113 Sat Oct 16, 1993 MIKE-ALLEN [NM~SysOp] at 07:38 EDT Ken Van, Many license agreements read as the following from my HiSoft/MichTron WERCS manual: "We ask that WERCS be used by either a single user on several computers or on a single computer by one or more users." Mike Allen ST HelpDesk~Sysop Written: 5:34 AM Mountain Time Saturday, October 16, 1993 ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 114 Sat Oct 16, 1993 F.HARRIS5 at 18:55 EDT Hi, Can you explain a little about the incremental backup. I am considering buying DB. Does this work from the file date only? Or does it use the file written bit? Thanks, Fred ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 115 Sun Oct 17, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 05:56 EDT >I believe this may have been discussed before, that your machine appears to >have a problem with detecting a media change, therefore, it doesn't realise >that the correct floppy is in the drive. Hopefully DBIII will do more to try >to force your machine to see the disk (DBII already tries pretty hard :') ) But the problem is when I'm doing an incremental. There is only 1 disk involved. There is no changing of disks so there is no media change. When this happens I have to start all over again. It would be nice if I could just pop in a freshly formated disc and continue the incremental backup. I wouldn't think that DBII should care? It should be simple enough to just give me that option. I suppose that DBII is numbering the disks but in a case like this it is preferable to over ride the numbering system so I can continue. Perhaps you might consider this "desperate but workable" work around in you next upgrade. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 116 Sun Oct 17, 1993 G.FUHRMAN [gnox] at 07:35 EDT Fred, DB II's incremental backup uses either the date or the archive bit - your choice. You can also choose whether to add the new files on to the end of a full backup or start a separate set. Among many other options. It's well worth the price. gnox ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 117 Sun Oct 17, 1993 J.ZORZIN [Joe.Z.] at 08:25 EDT Well, I guess I have to correct my last post. When DBII has a problem with a floppy doing an incremental- I ***am*** able to substitute a fresh floppy and continue. Somehow I had a problem with this previously. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 118 Sun Oct 17, 1993 R.MORROW10 [Bob M.] at 14:29 EDT Fred- DB2 does two kinds of incremental backups. One is by file date, the other is by archive bit (TOS 1.04 and up). The archive bit can be set/cleared by Atari's PRGFLAGS program or from within MaxiFile (MaxiFile can clear/set the archive bits on all files on the entire drive in one operation--very slick) I have DB2 do it's backups by archive bit, and all my .DOC files have the bit set ON. However, lets say you clear the archive bit for all files on the disk. When you run a program, it and any files it calls will have the archive bit ON when you exit the program, so they'll get backed up as well. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 119 Sun Oct 17, 1993 J.GERMAN3 [Hydraxxus] at 16:16 EDT I am getting a Floptical (it's on it's way out here) and was wondering if DBII can use it for my backups. I have 220 megs of fixed disk space and backing it up is a long and tedious process, I would like to use the 21 meg flopticals instead of my 1.6 meg floppies. Has anyone done this? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 120 Mon Oct 18, 1993 G.FUHRMAN [gnox] at 05:31 EDT > When you run a program, it and any files it calls will have the > archive bit ON when you exit the program, so they'll get backed up as > well. Um, Bob, this is not true. The archive bit is only set (turned on) when the file is _changed_. Running a program does not set its archive bit. gnox ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 121 Mon Oct 18, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 14:41 EDT All, Our basic license agreement specs for single user/multiple machines, is that it is OK, as long as simultaneous use is not possible, i.e. you do not have one system loaned out, etc. If you have other questions about specific situations, please give us a call Fred, DB will do it whichever of those two ways you wish - user selectable. Even though there is only one disc in your backup set, your machine can still think that whatever floppy may have been in previous to running DB is still there. J.German DBII works fine with a floptical, it sees it just like a HD partition. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 122 Mon Oct 18, 1993 R.FEINMAN [R.FEINMAN] at 21:36 EDT Hi I didn't get an answer last time so I'll try again... I'm using TOS 1.0 on a 1040ST and even though the archive bit isn't set properly I had a set of procedures I followed with Turtle that allowed me to use it. It seems that the sense of the bit has changed since TOS 1.0 so that the bit is cleared by Diamond Back from my perspective rather than set. A toggle or check of the TOS version when the program starts could fix this. I'm still Trying to figure out what the box with an "F" in it next to the archive choices does? Thanks... ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 123 Mon Oct 18, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 22:14 EDT Mike, I've seen that, too, but apparently DB II is more restrictive than that, so I wondered if one had to buy another copy at the full price to be legal on a second computer. I have one computer at home and one at work, and I'm the only one who uses either, so I guess I'm OK. Fred, What gnox said. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 124 Tue Oct 19, 1993 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 00:54 EDT R.FEINMAN - If memory serves... the F in DB II toggles the 'fuel guage' off and on. If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone here will correct me. Matt ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 125 Tue Oct 26, 1993 B.SEMAAN [BOSEM] at 02:07 EDT Bob - I backup my partitions with compression and validate on. Is there any need to validate files in uncompressed form also? I have been keeping 2 sets of validation files just in case, but would like to know if its even necessary. Also, when restoring compressed files with validation, which validation file would I use - compressed or normal? I've tried both and honestly it seems very few files are even being checked. I am assuming that if files are checked for validation that the checksum code is displayed on the screen during the restore. Some files have this happen but most don't. One other thing. Are you going to be supporting Hi-Soft's Tempus 2 editor? And if so, will there be a Falcon compatible version? The version I have will only run in ST compatibility mode, which admittedly is better than nothing but since it won't run in VGA modes I haven't used it enough on the Falcon to check if there may be other incompatibilities that I just have not seen yet. -Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 126 Tue Oct 26, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 21:55 EDT This has got to be a first. I received a newsletter from ORA today. It says I can now order Diamond Back 3! Now how come I haven't heard this on line? Did I miss something or the program is really available and no one told us! ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 127 Wed Oct 27, 1993 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 01:34 EDT What Tape Backup drives does DBIII support? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 128 Wed Oct 27, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 03:52 EDT I have to repost regarding my earlier statement concerning Diamond Back 3. The page where I found info on DB3 starts with big bold letters...."COMING SOON" Dont' even know how I could have missed that this morning! Spud, the newsletter states DB3 supports SCSI Tape backup. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 129 Wed Oct 27, 1993 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:32 EDT >>can now order Diamond Back 3! Now how come I haven't heard this on << >>line? Did I miss something or the program is really available and << >>no one told us! << It said you can ORDER it. Did it say you could GET it? Grin. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 130 Wed Oct 27, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 07:50 EDT Hey! I've been waiting for DB3! Please post ordering info. Al ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 131 Wed Oct 27, 1993 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 18:11 EDT See flat - Do I remember correctly that you are based up in Canada? Just curious 'cause I have not received a notice about DB3 yet here in the N.Y. area. How much is the upgrade? Matt ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 132 Wed Oct 27, 1993 P.NEAL [P.Neal] at 21:51 EDT Roger, I just caught up with this topic. I noticed a reply you entered to D.HADLAND pertaining to formating floptical disks with the ATARI button verses the STANDARD selection from the ICD format menu. You sent it a couple of months ago. Anyway, I was wondering what ICD software you are using? The software that came with my ICD LINK does not have any selections like that. I am inquiring now as I just starting using DB2 and am having some troubles with compressed files backup to my floptical drive. It is not every file, but still it is annoying enough to make me suspicious of the compression option. I seem to be unable to recover some of the files as a response of "Failed CRC check" or something along those lines. Of course now on my hard drive that file as a file length of 0 bytes so unless I can find a why around this problem I fear these files are gone for good. I don't believe it has anything do with file size as other {both large and small} files reconstruct properly. Any ideas anyone? Paul ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 133 Thu Oct 28, 1993 M.SHANNON [Morgan] at 00:21 EDT Paul, In order that I might more readily read your posts please use paragraphs every 5 lines or so OK? Thanks Morgan ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 134 Thu Oct 28, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 06:08 EDT Shucks, I sure hope I didnt' start a stampede here! Sorry Bob. As you probably have read already, the newsletter said COMING SOON. There was a few shots of the new interface though, it looks real nice. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 135 Thu Oct 28, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 08:55 EDT Paul, You need the upgraded ICD software. Get into the ICD support area on GENie and look through the files. al ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 138 Fri Oct 29, 1993 JRH [Roger] at 06:24 EDT Paul, I am using versuib 6,2,3 of the ICD Pro boot software - I have not check recently to see if there has been a more recent release. My understanding is that there are three versions maintained, the regular version used on systems with an ICD host adapter, the Link version, and the Pro version, and all are kept at the same version number. When an update is released, it is released in all three versions at the same time. I'm not sure at what version number it was, but at some point they introduced the option of formating flopticals either "Standard" (which gives formats with 4 sectors/cluster) and "Atari" (which formats with 2 sectors/cluster, to allow interchangablility between early and more recent versions of TOS). The problems you describe are exactly the same ones I was having. It seems to be the result of an unfortunate interaction between floptical disks formated with 4 sectors/cluster (Standard)and the use of compressed storage. There are two solutions: - Used uncompressed storage, or - Format flopticals using the Atari option. Both result in reliable backups and recovery from DBII, although the latter is for me the preferred option. I have not had any further problems since I switched to formating with the Atari option. BTW, I do not believe you can update by downloading the more recent versions from the ICD support area. They only put the regular version of their software on GEnie. The Link and Pro versions have to be updated by sending in the disk (and $10, I think) to ICD. Their address and phone number are in your manual. Talk to Howard - he is their Atari support guy, and is very helpful. Regards, Roger ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 139 Fri Oct 29, 1993 JRH [Roger] at 07:34 EDT Paul, Oops! The fingers got out of synch with the brain. That should have been "version 6.2.3"! Roger ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 141 Sat Oct 30, 1993 J.HUGHES23 [Jack ] at 20:05 EDT ORA I just purchased DBII thanks to the re-review in STI. And now there is DBIII. Will the upgrade just cost me the credit balance currently on your books, considering the price for DBIII quoted in the "Celebration" folder? [( ) Jack ( )] ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 142 Sat Oct 30, 1993 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 22:32 EDT Hey, I have moved since I bought Diamond Back. Can I send E-Mail to update my mailing address? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 147 Mon Nov 01, 1993 P.NEAL [P.Neal] at 23:08 EST Roger, Thanks for the reply. I think it was Al who left a reply here about checking out ICD RT for upgrade info. I mailed my disk back to ICD today to get an update. I was able to do a sucessful backup with compression option enabled by going from partion to partion of my internal HD. So I guess I was convinced that I should update. Thanks for the help one and all. I am now just sitting back patiently waiting for the latest and greatest from the folks at ICD. Paul ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 148 Mon Nov 01, 1993 GENIELAMP.ST [John G] at 23:13 EST Am I right in assuming that with the current version of DBII you cannot do multi-platter backups to a SyQuest of Floptical (using 1.44M disks)? I tried this and got the error message 'Disk Full' John E. Gniewkowski Editor, GEnieLamp ST ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 150 Wed Nov 03, 1993 GENIELAMP.ST [John G] at 00:04 EST I gave it a go, and when I go to the abort, continue dialog, I switched disks and the computer rebooted on me! Sheesh! Oh well, here's to DBIII! John E. Gniewkowski Editor, GEnieLamp S ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 152 Wed Nov 03, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 12:14 EST Bob, The validation file will be the same whether you use compression or not. The calculation is done on the original file, not the backup copy. I will have to check on the Tempus 2 question, and I will post the answer in the announce topic when I get an answer. J.Brenner, If you look at the order form, you will see that availability is December, although we are taking orders now, and will ship all backorders first. T.Hebel, All SCSI Tape drives are supported, and yes, send your address change E-mail, and we'll take care of it. Al, Upgrades through us, call (503)620-4919, or new purchases, contact your local dealer, or if you don't have one, call us at the number above. Jack, The upgrade is $29, and your (11.45) will be subtracted. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 153 Thu Nov 04, 1993 B.SEMAAN [BOSEM] at 01:30 EST Bob L.- If the validation files are the same for compressed or non-compressed then is there some other reason that I'm missing which causes my validation files to be different sizes depending on whether I create them before or during a compressed backup? All selections, switches, paths, etc. are the same for both. The 2 files just come out different. -Bob ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 154 Thu Nov 04, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 19:29 EST >Although we are taking orders now, and will ship all backorders first. If I order now, do I get billed now or when you ship? John B. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 155 Thu Nov 04, 1993 K.SPRINGER1 [FROZEN NORTH] at 22:27 EST ORA folks, For the topic cops , I will be ordering DBIII from the mailer I got today. Some questions on products for which there are no topics in this category, unless I need to update my topic list. It's been a while. Video Master Will there be a demo available before the sale is over? Unless it is really recent, I couldn't find one in the library. I know zilch about this type of software, but am wondering if it is possible to save a graphic file from the images created in some form that would be importable into DTP programs? Stereo Master Demo available? True Image Demo for that too? Thanks, Ken S. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 156 Sun Nov 07, 1993 GENIELAMP.ST [John G] at 11:22 EST Is there any way to _force_ DBII to write a file even if the checksum is bad? The _only_ file that I cannot restore is the _most_ important ont (finances) - isn't it always the case!?!?!!? If I can, I'd like to have DBII uncompress it and let me at least see how bad it is. John ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 157 Sun Nov 07, 1993 A.PETRIE1 [Suzie/AL] at 23:24 EST Tonight I was backing up my hard drive, and to save time I was formatting the floppies on my laptop. While doing the backup(about 32 meg into the backup) I noticed that the information for disk size and space left would drop to zero whenever the space remaining dropped below 720 K (I was using 1.44 meg disks). when that partition finished backing up, I dropped out of diamond back and from the desk top asked for information on a couple disks selected at random from the backup set. all showed huge number of megs in hidden files, also some of the file names were completely garbled. The selections I had made in diamond back were no compression, no format, no encrypt, split files. I then formatted a couple disks from the desktop, and started a backup, and everything went normaly. I then formatted another disk on the laptop, and then loaded it into the Atari, then I copied about a meg of files onto the disk and all files looked ok and programs ran. I am using a 4 meg Mega STE with 105 meg hard drive, tos 2.05 the unit came from the dealer with a 1.44 meg floppy. The laptop is a toshiba 1900 with a 120 meg hd and 1.44 meg floppy, and 4 megs of ram, dos 6.0, double space has been used on the hd but is not configured to use the floppy. I can do my backup by formatting and backing up on the Atari, it will just take more time, but as I was doing this backup specificaly so I could reformat and repartition my hard drive, I would have been up a creek without a paddle. Diamond back just kept chugging along without a care in the world, completely unaware of any problem. Is this a problem that occurs with Dos formatted disks, or is this a fluke that just happened to almost get me. Anybody have any Idea why this happened. Thanks AL P. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 158 Mon Nov 08, 1993 G.FUHRMAN [gnox] at 06:08 EST Al, As soon as I started using HD floppies on my TT I noticed that the "space remaining" display was wrong, but haven't had trouble with the actual backup files on the disk - it may not be related to the problem you had. gnox ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 159 Mon Nov 08, 1993 O-ZONE [Flakes] at 19:29 EST It was mentioned that DB3, for which you should now or soon have my upgrade request, will allow backup to tape. Would this mean just to regular tape backup systems or also to DAT and if so, how would you interface the computer with a DAT machine? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 160 Mon Nov 08, 1993 T.HEBEL [Spud Boy] at 21:02 EST I thought there was a problem with DBII and IBM formatted disks. I would format all of them on the ATARI until you get an update. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 161 Mon Nov 08, 1993 GENIELAMP.ST [John G] at 23:48 EST Just a reminder to users making backup to their floptical drives.... Partition your floptical to the Atari mode, rather than the Standard partition mode. If you're using compression on your backups (and who isn't) most anything over 20K will come back with bad checksums when it comes time to restore! Ugh, I learned the hard way on this one - lost a valuable data file (the only file I couldn;t replace). My fault to (I re-read one of my posts in the PMC topic mentioning this VERY SAME THING _PRIOR_ to me making the error I warned about! Talk about kicking oneself!) Bob, Got my fall NEWS in the mail - nicely done as always (already orderd PFM+ at the sale price the day before, though) John E. Gniewkowski Editor, GEnieLamp ST ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 162 Mon Nov 08, 1993 M.RIVMAN1 [MATT] at 23:56 EST Bob, and the ORA folks - As I've yet to receive any mail re: the upgrade path to DB III, how about posting a small msg on it? Or perhaps upload a .TXT file? Matt ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 163 Tue Nov 09, 1993 M.SHANNON [Morgan] at 22:39 EST ORA-Tech, Please reiterate to confirm my decision to purchase DB, OK? 1. DB _will_ back-up (in file mode) to my ICD-TAPE even from my DATALite partitions so I don't have to IMAGE-BU all 32mbytes even tho' I have only 20mbytes of files? 2. DB will optionally compress those GEM-Format files on BACK-UP to Tape and uncompress (optionally) them upon refurbish? 3. Will DB allow me an option to use any other Tape-cartridge than the present one (120mb)? Please advise... :^) Morgan John E., Are you telling us NOT to use compression for any files over 20mb? Please clarify... Thanks Morgan ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 164 Wed Nov 10, 1993 GENIELAMP.ST [John G] at 00:24 EST Morgan, The caution with backing up files using compression is only during certain circumstances: [*] You are backing up to a floptical disk and... [*] ...that floptical was partitioned using ICD software in the STANDARD (not ATARI) partition mode. Seems if you are doing both of the above you're bound to loose data (the more important, the better the chance, I found out!) If you're backing up to floppies, I'd suggest you ALWAYS use compression - it seems to be even faster than without compresssion. John ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 165 Wed Nov 10, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 01:00 EST Flakes, Yes, from what I hear DB3 will work with about any SCSI tape backup units. From what I understand, most 8MM and DAT drives come standard with a SCSI interface. You should just be able to set the SCSI device ID and plug it into your SCSI chain somewhere. ***** Stargazer ***** MATT, According to the Fall News release that I just got the upgrade from any version of DBII to DBIII is $29.00 + $1.00 shipping + $3.00 handling which equals...... $33.00. Upgrade orders must be accompanied by either your original disk or a Xerox copy of your original disk (direct quote from the sales flyer). ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 166 Wed Nov 10, 1993 J.GERMAN3 [Hydraxxus] at 03:21 EST John, Thanks for the note on the flopticals. Just got one and hadn't gotten around to using DBII for a full backup yet. BTW does it take forever for you to format a floptical disk? Jim ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 167 Wed Nov 10, 1993 C.UNDERWOOD1 [Carson] at 08:21 EST Hydraxxus, You shouldn't have to format a new floptical fresh out of the box. All it needs is to be partitioned. At least that is the way it is with the 3M flopticals I use. Carson ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 168 Wed Nov 10, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 08:38 EST Jim, Reformatting Flopticals takes just a few minutes with the Iomega Floptical drive. Some drives reportedly take 20 minutes... Al ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 169 Wed Nov 10, 1993 D.KAUFMAN [d.a.k.] at 21:12 EST Just got my Oregon Research mailer today (11/10/93) in the NYC area. It looks great. I hope the point and click restore tells you what disk in the backup saveset to put in the drive, which would be taking a tip from the messy dos world of backup programs. I shall be ordering it soon. d.a.k. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 170 Thu Nov 11, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 12:43 EST Al P. There is a problem with Diamond Back 2 and Disks formatted with DOS 5 or 6. The solution for now is to format with the Atari. The problem does not exist in DB3, however. Flakes, DB3 will backup to any SCSI tape drive, alot of DAT drives are SCSI. Morgan, 1. Yes, DB3 will back up file mode to ICD tape 2. Yes, DB3 will compress backups to tape 3. Yes, if the tape drive recognises the length of media and reports it when asked. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 171 Thu Nov 11, 1993 A.FASOLDT [Al Fasoldt] at 23:24 EST Carson, You're right, but there are times when any disk needs to be formatted - when it's trult scrambled, or when something else has gone bad, or when, as I did, you place the disk on top of the TV... Al ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 172 Thu Nov 11, 1993 GENIELAMP.ST [John G] at 23:42 EST Yes, you shouldn't have to format a floptical. My drive and/or curent ICD formatting software will not even format a floptical (no matter how long I give it)! It seems silly really, and wold like to figgure out what the problem is (but not on Bob's topic ;) John P.S. Doesn't DBIII look great (from the screen shots in the mailer)! ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 173 Fri Nov 12, 1993 J.GERMAN3 [Hydraxxus] at 01:36 EST Al and Carson, I took the time to go through the Atari base and mark the removable media areas, you'll see my slap on the forhead there as I read all the nice wonderfull information there. I was happy to note that I had no problemsiamond with DBk II dg on my floptical. Sometimes I wince when using new hardware with tried and true software...if it's something I like I hate to see problems. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 174 Fri Nov 12, 1993 E.DANIELS1 [Smoke Eater] at 12:21 EST Hi all. I don't know if it's been addressed here before, but I'd like to share a tip if I may on DBII. Please be sure to only boot with TOS and not one of it's derivatives. There is a conflict during the 'File Backup' option that doesn't allow you to read all available directories and files if the entire partition is selected. For example, if your View Path selected screen shows; C:\*.*\*.* ,when attempting a complete partition backup, you have the conflict. The correct path should be; C:\*.* ,and should show this; C:\ , from the Additional Paths or Masks screen. I hope this helps. I my case the offending program was PowerDOS, even though I'm not using PowerNET or Universal Network. Sorry if this message is repeated. GENIE locked up in PRIME TIME!!!, so I disconnected. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 175 Fri Nov 12, 1993 M.SHANNON [Morgan] at 23:47 EST John, I'm backing up to FAST-tape. What say you? Thanks Morgan :^) ---------- SmokEater, I've seen and had the same problem.. Morgan ORA-Robb, Answer #3: I can't find the FAST CAT so I have to ask you... Does the FAST Hardware ask and then recognize the length of the media _and_ report to the software each time it's implemented? Please advise :^) Morgan ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 176 Thu Nov 18, 1993 D.GLISH [DAVE GLISH] at 19:36 EST I recently read that the new upgrade to Diamond Back will have Tape backup support. I am considering buying a SCSI tape backup unit (hopefully to share between my ST and IBM). I am wondering if the software will only support certain tape units or do they have a common set of instructions. I am looking at a 250meg unit by Conner. I can get one for under $200. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 177 Fri Nov 19, 1993 T.GIRSCH [TJ @ S-Mart] at 23:54 EST Dave - SCSI is SCSI. The only thing you might not be able to do is read ST tapes on your PC, and vice versa. But sharing otherwise should not be a problem. - T.J. P.S. Hello! ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 178 Sat Nov 20, 1993 L.HINSLEY [Stargazer] at 01:36 EST Dave, From what I hear it will work with ANY SCSI tape back unit. How many drives can you get for that price???? ***** Stargazer ***** ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 179 Sat Nov 20, 1993 D.GLISH [DAVE GLISH] at 12:13 EST I am not sure. I will be going back today and double check the price. It sounds awfully good. I'm glad to hear that it should work with any SCSI drive. I guess I should have read the earlier messages before posting my message ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 180 Sun Nov 21, 1993 W.ORTIZ [Will] at 10:31 EST Dave Glish, Can you leave some info as to where I can that same tape unit for $200.00.... My EMAIL address is W.ORTIZ....Thanks in advance. Will W.ORTIZ ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 181 Mon Nov 22, 1993 D.CRANO [Big D] at 21:15 EST May be we need to start another topic, but if anyone has info on SCSI tape backup units, where to get em, the price, ect how about letting me know where... Either reply here or leave me Email........ I want to be ready for DB III..... Thanks, Big D ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 182 Tue Nov 23, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 11:28 EST Dave, DB3 will work with any standard SCSI Tape Drive. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 183 Wed Nov 24, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 00:47 EST Is Diamond Back III on schedule for the december release? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 184 Thu Nov 25, 1993 A.MASON4 [Anna] at 16:12 EST Bob, Dumb question #101 ;-) Besides owning a couple of STs, I also have a 486SX. I will soon be getting an external tape backup drive for the PC. With DB3 (my check for the upgrade should be in the mail soon), is there someway that I will be able to use the tape drive with both systems? Not being a hardware-type person, I'm not sure if I would also need a special cable and other STuff for my Atari. Thanks! Anna ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 185 Mon Nov 29, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 14:07 EST Yes, DB3 should be shipping in December. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 186 Fri Dec 03, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 12:48 EST Anna, The tape drive needs to be SCSI, some PC drives use an IBM card for connection, these kind would not work. With a SCSI, it would simply be a matter of switching cables. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 187 Sat Dec 04, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 11:56 EST Bob, You said you'd respond to inquiries about your products on the price list, and I don't really want to get into a lot of new topics, so here they are. DB - I'll order the upgrade UVK - Ditto True Paint - Maybe. I already have TouchUp and MVG, and really don't do drawings enough to warrant another program of that kind. I suspect I would use it mainly as a viewer, but who knows? Knife ST - I've heard good things, but I have EdHak, so can't see getting Knife for a rare job of editing a character in code. 3D-Calc - I have LDW Power and AtariWorks. This shows 3 screens at once. Anything else? Why should I add it? MIDI stuff - I have Music Studio 88, and a CZ-101 keyboard with some CZ software, but haven't gotten into MIDI much. I'd like to when I have more time. You don't have much of a description in OR News, but Sequencer One and The Hit Kit sound interesting. I'm not sure they're good for me. I may be interested in video down the road when I get a video camera. Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 188 Sun Dec 05, 1993 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 00:59 EST Hi Bob, Has Diamond Back III started shipping yet? You should already have my upgrade request. Thanks Jack ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 189 Sun Dec 05, 1993 J.COYLE3 [JAMIE] at 14:43 EST I too live in New York and haven't received any info about DBIII, so Bob, can you send me another flyer? Thanks. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 190 Tue Dec 07, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 14:25 EST Ken Van, True Paint has the major strength of working in any resolution/graphics mode, plus some great animation features for a low cost. 3D Calc is actually 3 dimensional, i.e. instead of Rows x Columns, 3D Calc has Rows x Columns x Pages. Sequencer One is a great way to get started in MIDI for a very low cost, with the added bonus of simultaneous playback of samples while doing MIDI. Any more specific questions, do not hesitate to ask Jack, DB3 will ship in January, and we will ship the pre orders first. Jamie, E mail me your address, and I'll send out a Newsletter to you. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 191 Tue Dec 07, 1993 B.CONNOLLY1 [Bud] at 20:26 EST I just purchased a used copy of Diamond Back II (2.42). What's the latest version? How can I transfer the registration/upgrade? Bud ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 192 Tue Dec 07, 1993 K.VANDELLEN [Ken Van] at 21:58 EST Bob, Thanks. I don't recall seeing a definitive answer on how I get the right to use your programs on more than one computer. I'd like to put them on my Falcon in my office at the college where I teach, as well as here at home. Do you need some money? (Put them on the hard drive and began using them there before I remembered your policy. It came back to me when I had a problem, and suddenly realized I wasn't supposed to have it there.) Ken Van ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 193 Tue Dec 07, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 22:08 EST Bob, >DB3 will ship in January.... ? what happened to "yes John DB3 will ship in December" ? Not a critisizm, just curiousity. John B. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 194 Tue Dec 07, 1993 M.SHANNON [Morgan] at 23:11 EST Robb, DB3 will ship "in January"; can you be more specific(?) ie, I understood DB3 to be all finished except for the boxes\manuals when I spoke with authority in Glendale and DB3 was to be "in the mail" 6 weeks (at the latest) from that show's closing date. Now you know why I ask.. +,+ Morgan ___) ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 195 Tue Dec 07, 1993 J.LEMLEY [Jack] at 23:24 EST Thanks for the info Bob! Jack ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 196 Sun Dec 12, 1993 R.MORROW10 [Bob M.] at 19:06 EST Help! I can't get DB 2.5 to back up to my G: drive. It gives 2 bombs after it's done with whatever partition it starts with. Going over the G: drive afterwards with DE says the G: drive has serious problems and I should run Medic now, so I did. Medic found *.* lost clusters (or whatever, I forget) and fixed them. (all bad FAT entries on G:\backups) What's going on? Something's not right when the program bombs after backing up 4 files totalling maybe 50k. I can backup to floppy just fine, but it takes forever. I have DB2 set to back up to HD partition (G:\backups), compress files, no encrypt and are backing up by archive bit. ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 197 Sun Dec 12, 1993 R.MORROW10 [Bob M.] at 20:27 EST I think I found the source of the problem. DB2 didn't like sending all the files/folders into one folder (it was G:\backups) but it doesn't mind sending everything to G:\*.* It's working now. Is DB3 out? ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 198 Sat Dec 18, 1993 S.MARKOW [Steve] at 21:40 EST I have a question. I have DBII and one problem I notice is that on some small files and even some larger files on my IBM partition, with compression on, the compressed size becomes larger. Will DBIII have a way to check and see if compressed is larger and hence not compress it? Steve ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 199 Mon Dec 20, 1993 ORA [Bob] at 12:25 EST Bud, DBII is at 2.51. Version 3 will be available in January. To transfer the registration, you just need a receipt from the seller and a photocopy of the disc. Upgrading then just requires a photocopy of disk plus upgrade fee. See Flat, The author was sick for several weeks, and this pushed back our release date. Robb @ ORA ------------ Category 33, Topic 2 Message 200 Mon Dec 20, 1993 J.BRENNER1 [See Flat] at 18:38 EST Robb, sorry to hear it. A few weeks......that's sounds serious. I hope everything is ok now. John B. ------------