How I backup my hard disk using CP and CPNEW

                               by Bryan Higgins


            The following describes how I back up my Winchester disk onto
        floppies using the programs CP and CPNEW, of which I am the
        author.  I do this on a DEC Rainbow, but everything is "generic
        DOS" and applicable to the PC as well.  This discussion assumes
        CP version 3.0 or greater and CPNEW version 3.3 or greater.

            I designed these tools for me; not everyone will find
        this method entirely to their liking.  But it does, I believe,
        offer some advantages over BACKUP.  You should refer to the
        writeups distributed with CP and CPNEW for more complete
        information about how each command works.

            I keep two sets of floppies for full backups, one at home and
        one in a safe deposit box.  When I do a full backup, I take that
        backup to the bank and retrieve the other (older) set which I
        then have available for next time.  In the meantime, if I need to
        restore something that hasn't changed since the older backup was
        made, I don't have to go to the bank to get it.  But the most
        important thing is that there is always a set in safe deposit and
        that set is the most recent.

            Having two sets guards against fire or theft of computer and
        disks together, and the (admittedly rather slim) possibility that
        the backup floppies are bad.  The scheme described below works
        just as well with one set, however.

            In addition to the full backups, I keep one pair of floppies
        with the computer for incremental backups of files changed since
        the last full backup.  I do an incremental backup at the end of
        every session.  When these two are nearly full, I make a full
        backup over the older full set I have with the computer, take
        that set to the bank and exchange it for the other set.  I then
        erase the two incremental backup disks and start adding changed
        files to them again.

            Files are stored on floppies as standard DOS files; they can
        be retrieved with a simple COPY (or CP) command.  Files are
        stored on the floppies in the same directory structure used on
        the hard disk.

            Full backups are done with the CP command using the -B
        (backup) option.  I use

                    CP -BI <\DLIST

        -B is for backup; -I tells CP that the list of files or
        directories to back up comes from standard input.  Since my
        directory structure changes rather infrequently, I keep a list of
        my directories in the file DLIST in my root directory.  This file
        looks something like

                    \
                    \EXE
                    \GAMES
                    \INCLUDE
                    \INCLUDE\SYS
                    \NCMS
                    \NCMS\SRC
                    \NCMS\INCLUDE
                    \SRC

        Note that each subdirectory is listed; CP will not work
        recursively.

        More automatically, the input to CP could come from the LS
        program

                    LS -DRF \ | CP -BI

        but the file method is faster.  One could also omit the -I and
        list the files/directories on the command line.

        Since I do not specify a target drive, -B implies both drives A
        and B will be used.  The advantage to this is that CP doesn't
        pause for you to change disks until both disks are full, so you
        have to attend to it half as often.  If you only have one drive,
        specify A:

            With a DEC rainbow, CP will automatically clear each
        floppy of all its old files and directories before it starts
        writing (it will warn you when CP is first fired up).  IBM users
        will have to erase the floppies beforehand.  CP will create
        directories on the floppies as needed to store a file with its
        full path name.

            CP clears (or sets, depending on how you define it) the
        archive flag after it backs up each file on the hard disk.  If a
        file is changed or a new file is added, DOS automatically sets
        the flag indicating that it has not been backed up.  I then run
        CPNEW at the end of each day; the -B (for backup) option causes
        it to back up only files with the archive flag set.  CPNEW clears
        the flag when it has successfully backed up a file.  CPNEW
        overwrites a file of the same path name on the target disk, thus
        only the latest version is kept of a given file.

            The command I use is

                    cpnew -BI <\dlist

        The same remarks apply to the input of CPNEW as to the input of
        CP above.  Again, an absence of a target implies both drives A
        and B.  For each file to back up, CPNEW looks on A and B for a
        file to replace.  New files are added to A until it is full, then
        to B.

        Again, once a full backup has been made, I erase all the old
        files and directories on my pair of incremental floppies to start
        afresh.

        CP, CPNEW, and LS are available on various FIDO boards.

        The author may be reached/rewarded at

                1802 Channing Way
                Berkeley, CA 94703