🚀 go-pugleaf

I have a P75 Mhz Award Bios computer with WARP 4 (at FP 9 I think- 10 does not 
seem to have installed successfully) installed and currently running on it as 
follows:
Hard Disc1Quantum 1 Gb IDE- master
Primary Part 	1 Mb 	Boot Manager with DOSos(C Drive), Win95(CDrive) and OS/2 (F 
Drive)options
Primary Part 	350Mb	For DOS and OS/2 (FAT)
Primary Part	685Mb	For Win95 (FAT)

Hard Disc 2 Maxtor 1Gb IDE- slave

Primary Part	505	D Drive FAT DATA
Logical Part		527             E Drive FAT DATA

CD ROM Matshita CR 585 on IDE Master

Hard Disc 3 SCSI Quantum 3.2 GB SCSI ID 0

Primary Part?	7Mb	Free Space- never created I just end up with this if I only 
logically partion this drive
Logical Partition	400Mb	F Drive HPFS OS2 system bootable
Logical Partition	760Mb	G Drive HPFS programs 
Logical Partition	1898Mb	H Drive HPFS data and programs

TAPE UNIT Seagate TapeStor 4/8Gb SCSI ID 4

Remainder of System

PCI Flashpoint LW SCSI card (ID's at 7)
PCI S3 864 2Mb video
ISA Soundblaster Vibra16 soundcard
ISA Modem can't remember brand 28K
ISA SCSI card (or pseudo SCSI?) came with  ARTEC AT3 scanner

Part 1 The Problem with Floppies
======================
Currently the heat wet and dirt of Darwin has me go through 1 or 2 floppy drives
per year also it is not unusual to find that 8 or 9 out a box of10 floppies you 
have stored generate CRC errors with fatal results for getting what was on them 
back off.
Eg in the last month both my original and backup disc's for FASTBACK PLUS for 
OS/2 (stored in slightly different locations) showed they were now only usefull 
as drink coasters, I'd pulled them and the Version 1.0 update disc out after 
reading about Brad Barclay still using Fastback successfully now (I don't think 
I'd ever had it on Warp 4 and maybe not even Warp 3 Connect - memory goes as to 
exactly when I used it either the days of 2.11 or non Connect 3).
That dreadful squeal that tells you your next thing to do is buy a new floppy 
drive greeted me on inserting my last floppy copy of BackAgain ver 2.01(despite 
what Roland says for me it has successfully restored my system from major 
operator errors made when installing  Linux ) ironically enough I had put it in 
to do a disc copy.

So now I have no floppy based way to reinstall my back up software.

Part 2 The part 1 Problem work around
===========================

Simple I thought, as seen from the above drive table install OS/2 to another 
drive copy over the BA/2 drivers and files, manually add the entries to 
config.sys that you need. Check it works? Yep, pat self on back.
Getting even smarter putting it on a fat drive means that DOS can see it so if 
something happens that takes out my os/2 on both drives (like my stupid error) I
can restore my restoration software from my DOS eg I have one tape for using 
seagates DOS backup software and many floppies with enough to get dos and the 
seagate software running again. Further if any thing takes out the DOS it 
probably wont touch my main os/2 (f drive) and I can restore the C drive dos 
stuff from my os/2 back ups.

Part 3 The Second Problem
===================
Stupidity would be the short summary of it. No, not putting in the Win95 install
disc (as many would say)! But forgetting which C was active and which hidden and
destroying the system files in the root of the DOS/OS2 partition somehow as I 
recall, this was just after some Partition Magic sessions to eliminate the linux
partitions change partition sizes and locations etc etc. All this done so that I
would be able to "Solve" a  Win95 problem in the time honoured fashion 
(reinstall it ) and with an eye to future likely system changes.
Hey thats what backups are for right? Restore drive from backup and off we go.
Wrong!  Vaguely I recalled something about  being able systx for OS/2 on FAT 
drives and sys for DOS before they were bootable again so I think that maybe 
that's it but without thinking it through properly went to a command line and 
issued C:\os2\boot /dos. thinking I'll just check Dos Works while I'm here -  
wrong somehow about now I manged to get my config and autoexec's swapped eg Dos 
tried to boot using OS/2's config.sys file. In short stuffed up the dual boot.
Ok this is no major crisis I can just format the disc and restore either from 
DOS or OS/2, a little nervous though as some of you will have noticed a level of
redundancy is now missing in all this. 
 
Part 4 The Next "Great" Idea
 ===================
Instead of just doing that I now say to myself "Well I've had a problem with 
applying the last fixpack, the motherboard isn't 2K compliant so I'll be 
changing it soon, I'll upgrade the video to AGP then and (finances depending) 
maybe a new "big" drive or two. So maybe I should do a clean Warp 4 install now 
and check that I'll have the appropriately updated drivers available and working
on floppies for then and I know I've just replaced the floppy drive so it should
be up to making a number of copies without s----ing itself." Usuall problems 
with floppies - throw away about 8 floppies before finally getting 3 good ones 
ready to go.

Part 6 How ?
=========
Inital plan: shutdown, insert CD reboot from floppies install small system in 
FAt with dual boot (memory check of what to select: TCPIP yes, VGA only Desktop,
Faxworks, IBM's DOIP and IC should do from the CD - idea is that when I stuff 
something up it puts me in a position to email someone or fax them for help if I
need to - nothing more frustrating than remembering the solution to the problem 
was in an newsgroup last week if you can't access the net).
Shutdown, reboot disc 2 no good. OK boot to main partition and make some new 
install discs by running cdinst.cmd off the CD.
Done, Shutdown, reboot, feed discs - install disc two eg the third in the 
process trundles away for a while then returns an error That the sytem can't 
operate the floppy or the hard drive and is stopped in that usual IBM speak that
means that you don't know anything eg is it both the floppy and the HD it can't 
run?
Reboot to main system recreate a new disc 2 shutdown reboot with discs feeding 
as necessary install starts OK chose Advanced selected the partition I wanted 
get reminded that although DOS isn't necessary for installing dual boot its 
easier that way- interupt install to put DOS on.

Part 7
OK I'll restore from tape
=================
Lastest backup in and away we go - noises of "shoeshining" from tape unit - how 
long do I let it go? Dilemma solved in 35 minutes or there abouts Backagain 
returns an error about tape device.
Second try. Reboot from floppy to minimal  based DOS system and run Seagates DOS
backup I'll restore from there. Whoops! The program isn't there any more. More 
DOS fooling around to get CD working so I can reinstall it. Then "Not enough 
memory to run program" - I'd forgotten those EMS/HIMEM games we used to all play
with DOS. Spend time fiddling DOS drivers. Then have Seagates Backup tell me 
that there is a problem with the drive!
Bugger!
Search office for purchase record - experience delight of finding it and finding
that the unit is still under warranty. Contact retailer "flicked" to importer 
(ACA Pacific - I'll mention them by name as they were helpful). Shipped unit 
back received new replacement. In the meantime look very closely at adds for 
CDRW's - for the general compatability issue it seems that the Yamaha 1644S is 
the go.

Part 8
Conclusion
========
At last you say. So why am I boring this group with all this? Well apart from 
the cartharsis that writing it has given me, I'd like to know is anyone using 
Fastback Plus with the Yamaha 1644S? Any setting up traps/tricks? Can anyone 
email me the Fastback Plus install disk files and the 1.0 update - Symantec in 
Australia doesn't want to help, seems rough when you've bought the license to 
use it ?
If i can't get that going what files do I need to have (and where) for Cdrecord 
for OS/2 to work - can it be setup for "stand alone" (booting from floppy) 
restores (given the record I have with tapes, tape units and floppies and floppy
drives I am expecting a hard drive will fail :(  sometime)?


Richard A Crane	cc emailed replies to rcraneAT ibmDOT net

Foolproof is not good enough ..... we're not dealing with fools