Re: Backing up a minix partition

[Stephen Usher <Stephen.Usher@earth-sciences.oxford.ac.uk>]

>> Install one of the raw floppy drivers, such as ps0.
>>
>> The command:
>> gtar czvMf /dev/ps0 /foo/bar
>> will then backup the directory /foo/bar as a multi-volume gzipped raw
>> archive.  It will prompt you for each disk.
>>
>Ok, I've tried that. Using GNU tar version 1.11.2 I get:
>
>gtar: cannot use multi-volume compressed archives
>
>Now that's a shame. I really don't like backing up my harddisk without
>compression (which does work BTW).

Surely you mean the other way around.. I'd never trust a compressed backup
as one fault in the media will cause far more damage. Indeed with compressed
archives it's usually impossible to recover anything from a corrupted volume.

At least with a non-compressed archive you can get most things back, it's
normally only the file which is corrupted which is irretreavable (sp?).

>Perhaps you are using a more recent version (if any) of gtar.
>Otherwise I'll just have to look for another solution (if any),

I believe I know why compressed multi-volume backups are not supported..
gtar merely pipes the data through gzip so can't easily tell if it's getting
to the end of a volume.

>Richard.

Steve

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