Hi y'all,
I thought I'd summarize, at least to prevent any further responses,
which has been quick, immense and thoroughly informative. Many thanx.
In short:-
i) The consensus of opinion was that the dump/restore combination
proved the most popular copying technique suggested.
Unfortunately, my earliest experiences with these
commands were such that I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time
rewriting backup scripts to include tar instead. This in turn was to
combat a mass of user sourced complaints because I was unable to
guarantee the recovery of lost files.
Mind you, this was involving tape media and it was suuuuucchh a long
time ago that both media and commands could well be as robust as I would
expect them to be...;^}
ii) dd was suggested - I'm sceptical about this one, mainly
because the speed "swing" gained is generally lost to the validation
"roundabout"; e.g. crapped-on files would be copied over verbatum,
mapped out block info also (might be a significant factor if space is a
premium). In fact, if the HDD failure was down to a grotty file, all one
would be doing is copying the problem over to the second HDD.
I prefer cpio (or tar, for that matter) because at least
_some_ file integrity checks are carried out, which warrants an A+ for
this type of exercise - plus I've gotten used to it now.... :0}. Also a
very good cure for a pretty much fragmented HDD.
iii) There was a response that had tried tar without success and
another that insisted that gtar be used _instead_ of tar to
guarantee success.
Any gurus out there that could let me in on as to why..? I've carried
out similar exercises in the past using tar, with a high degree of
success. Surely it's not one of those OS dependant thangs?
iv) There were some responses that suggested that I might have to
recreate my device files - I've never had that problem before. If I do
suffer from this syndrome I'll be sure to let y'all know.
v) Finally, nearly all responses stated that what I needed was the
installboot command - methinks that this was what I was after.
Please don't flame me if any of my comments seem out of place - I'm
fragile....;^}
Big thanx to:
Stephen.G.Scott@att.com
alan.mckay@acadiau.ca (Alan McKay)
Sean Ward <seanw@amgen.com>
spillar@agric.nsw.gov.au (Ron Spillane)
"Patrick L. Nolan" <pln@egret1.Stanford.EDU>
miked@fujitsu.com.au (Mike Daffey)
Jens Fischer <jefi@kat.ina.de>
George L Roman <george@dbms.com>
john@stellarperformance.co.uk
Anthony.Worrall@reading.ac.uk (Anthony Worrall)
Anderson McCammont <and@morgan.com>
Franz.Heinrich@fhm.de (Franz Heinrich)
jeffw@triple-i.com (Jeff Wasilko)
tkevans@eplrx7.es.duPont.com (Tim Evans)
"Lyle E. Miller" <lyle@ocs.com>
mrs@cadem.mc.xerox.com (Mike Salehi)
and any one else of whom has responded since I mailed this reply....
Good Luck
tony(verygrateful)m
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