Backup CF HDD - How?

[scole]

Hello. After somehow breaking my Amiga OS install AGAIN yesterday and not being able to recover it, I'm reinstalling AGAIN (in winUAE because it's faster). That's no big deal as I'm learning something every time. However, I'd like to back up the drive once I've got it installed and with the preliminary setup so that the next time I foul it up I can save myself an hour or so by just copying the backup.

I've googled around but not found anything that's definitive and idiot proof. Can someone give me clear directions on:

1) Taking a backup image of the CF HDD
2) Restoring that image to the card when needs must

Thankyou!
S

 

[meega]

I used to back up entire partitions in an A1200 by simply making sure that they were exactly the same size to start with, and then you can drag'n'drop one onto the other. Job done.

Ed: you could also LhA (or other) the whole lot, and restore from archive whenever needed. Etc.

Ed2: or, set up a "recovery partition" to boot from if/when the main one gets hosed. 2MB is enough for a bare (slightly stripped) WB3.0. You don't need the vast majority of Storage (printer drivers for obsolete devices you've never owned) or Locale (languages you don't understand), or even Fonts unless you really want to use outline fonts when recovering.

 

[jvdbossc]

Meega is right, I alway's make sure that I am not booted from the drive that I wan't to backup, and start with the workbench adf then and the 2 drives ready..

 

[Charlie]

Hi,
From your post it looks like you have a CF reader in your WinPC and can mount that via WinUAE.

My usual plan:

-WinUAE with it's own AmigaOS install. (so I always have something bootable)
-A Windows folder called 'A1200' set to mount as a partition in WinUAE's WB.
-WinUAE set to mount the CF card partitions, if present.

->
-CF card in PC
-Start WinUAE
-Your CF card partitions appear in WB along with the WinUAE-Sys: and A1200 partitions.
-Drag 'n Drop all the partition icons from your Amiga's CF to the 'A1200' partition.
-Go make a cup of cha'...
-Back up done!

Restoring is the reverse procedure - though if you've completely jiggered your CF a quick format of each partition or HDToolBox may be required first.
You can also set up an alternate .config for WinUAE mirroring your real Amiga's setup by mounting the contents of the A1200 folder from Windows as Amiga partitions.

Hope that helps.

P.S.
There's also nothing to stop you treating your CF card as a HDD and use a program like Acronis True Image to make image files of your CF card, which can be restored later - You may regard this as safer (if less useful) than the above approach.

 

[User1301]

Hi,

-CF card in PC
-Start WinUAE
-Your CF card partitions appear in WB along with the WinUAE-Sys: and A1200 partitions.
-Drag 'n Drop all the partition icons from your Amiga's CF to the 'A1200' partition.
-Go make a cup of cha'...
-Back up done!

Restoring is the reverse procedure - though if you've completely jiggered your CF a quick format of each partition or HDToolBox may be required first.
You can also set up an alternate .config for WinUAE mirroring your real Amiga's setup by mounting the contents of the A1200 folder from Windows as Amiga partitions..

This is exactly what I do to back up my A4000's CF and it works a treat

John

 

[scole]

Excellent advice guys, I know exactly what you all mean, which is good because I'm going to have to do my first restore today after breaking workbench yet again. Whoops!

S

 

[Flink]

I do it all on the Amiga itself. I have two bootable partitions, with different systems (it's so easy to do on the Amiga!). Also, I have a couple of LHA files with a couple of complete systems. I can boot off a simple boot disk ( with the LHA command in C: ) and restore a whole system partition.

Still, one of the things I love about the Amiga is how one can intimately know the startup-sequence. Granted we can break it somewhat easily with an installation gone pear-shaped or our own stupidity :roll: , but I find it is also very easy to fix; most of the time I use another, simpler boot partition (or disk) just to have access to my startup-sequence and user-startup. Edit and away it goes!

Actually, I feel I *always* know what my Amiga is doing when she accesses the HD (I can't say the same for my PCs and even my Macs)...

 

[mfilos]

I always take backup of my partitions with lha using:
(Example taking whole System partition DH0: into an lha file named system.lha in partition DH1

1> DH0:
1> lha -aezrx a DH1:system.lha #?

(or replace z with Z if you want the lha file compressed).
It's a nice backup since it maintains all protection bits or other info.

I then take the system.lha into an usb stick (via poseidon) or if you don't have USB solution, you can take to an CF card or at least to WinUAE mounting your HD there

For restoring you don't need anything more than:
1> DH0:
1> lha x DH1: system.lha