Backing up a partition

[Racer^]

I want to completely back up a partition on the hard drive of one of my computers. Does it matter what file system is installed on the partition? It currently has an HPFS partition (not FAT32 or NTFS) and I want to back it up.

What would be a good program to use for this?

[ua549]

What OS? How much data?

[Racer^]

Heh the OS is OS/2 - and its about 500 MB of data.

BTW I can use another hard drive and boot to Windows/DOS if necessary and make the HPFS hard drive a slave drive.

[ua549]

The native Windows Backup does a good job of putting all that info into a single backup file that can reside anywhere - tape, disk, Cd, whatever. It is part of the OS (free).

[SkyDog]

Originally posted by ua549
The native Windows Backup does a good job of putting all that info into a single backup file that can reside anywhere - tape, disk, Cd, whatever. It is part of the OS (free).

In OS/2? (Did the Win-OS/2 portion of the OS include Backup? Or is there an OS/2-native backup included?)

If there are no backup options built into the OS, I'd recommend using a DOS floppy and Ghost to create an image file of that partition.

Or you could install another drive, load Windows NT 4.0, reconfigure it for HPFS support (since HPFS support was disabled after NT 3.51), and then use Windows Backup.

[Racer^]

By backup a partition, I mean a partition image (which I thought was obvious in my first post but apparrently not). Any partition image of course includes the boot sector and everybody knows that xcopy cant copy that. A program I've used in the past for Windows partitions is Ghost - and I want to know if it (or some similar software) will work no matter what the file system is.

[Dude]

Why don't you go to Symantec's website and look up Ghost and see if there is support for OS/2

[Racer^]

Good idea, Dude. Its amazing how the simplest answer can sometimes slip one's mind.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT...st&svy=&csm=no

Ghost can clone most file systems by performing a sector-by-sector clone. Sector copies take longer to create than native cloning because sector copies are exact copies of all areas of the disk including unformatted space and formatted space that is not in use.

Ghost can clone HPFS partitions only to drives which have disk geometry that is identical to the source drive. In practice, this usually means that both the source and destination drives must be of the same make and model. Ghost can only create sector copies of HPFS partitions, not native copies. Use the -ID or -IR switch. See the section "Sector copies." Also see the document Ghost compatibility with HPFS.

Ghost can clone nearly any file system when you use a sector-copy switch or option. Creating sector copies is significantly different to creating native copies:
* Ghost can use a sector-copy method to create disk images but not to create partition images.The disk image includes all partitions and all unformatted space.
* Ghost Explorer cannot read sector-copy images. Because Ghost Explorer cannot read the images, you cannot use Ghost Explorer to modify the images.
* Creating a sector copy is significantly slower than creating a native copy.