Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!madd From: madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: WARNING? Will FASTBACK corrupt your hard disk? Message-ID: <17052@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: Sat, 5-Dec-87 13:50:40 EST Article-I.D.: bu-cs.17052 Posted: Sat Dec 5 13:50:40 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 10-Dec-87 06:34:04 EST References: <703@vaxine.UUCP> <210@dale.acc.virginia.edu> Reply-To: madd@buita.UUCP (Jim Frost) Distribution: na Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group Lines: 43 Keywords: hard disk, lost files, trojan horse In article <210@dale.acc.virginia.edu> gjh@dale.UUCP (Galen Hekhuis) writes: >I have been a user of Fastback reliably for some time now on AT&T 6300's >and Kaypro PC computers. I am a satisfied user on my home machine. I have >backed up and restored files using Fastback through numerous DOS upgrades, >partitioning schemes, etc. I have also physically scraped backup disks >with metalic objects and still experienced flawless data recovery. > >I had to respond. I am responsible for maintaining a number of different >machines running. Post-mortems on data errors has been difficult for me, >and I would want pretty good evidence of product or part failure before I >would want to warn others. Of course, your mileage may vary. I wish that the original sender had included the version of Fastback that he was using. It would have made life easier. The company I work for, at my request, uses Fastback version 5.13 for all of their backups. We run a true-blue IBM AT with original controller and an 85Mb (unformatted) Micropolis drive, set up for one partition using Golden Bow Systems' VFeature software. We have never had a problem with Fastback and have been quite happy with its performance and reliability. Even using junk disks the program runs like a charm. I am aware of problems with earlier versions, however. The first problem I had with them is that they were copy protected. I don't use backup software that can't be backed up. I hear rumors that some of the 4.x versions barfed if the disk had an error on track 0. Fastback would report the error and continue but the disk would be unreadable. We never had this error so I assume it's fixed by version 5.13. I also hear that new versions will be DOS readable, an interesting change. Me, I'm happy with the product. >I am in no way associated with Fifth Generation and have no interest in >the fortunes of Fastback. I am simply a satisfied customer. Ditto. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu