dumping/backing up Side2 partitions

[mchorvat]

hello folks,

 

i realized it might be good to backup my SDX files on SIDE2 CF card - i have 7 APT partitions (d3 through d9), 512 bps, 65535 sectors each. This equals to 32MB file.

I used fdisk for partitioning and also using AspeQT/RespeQT via SIO2USB (from Lotharek). I know Aspeqt can create and mount files this big, but the question is how can i dump or backup my original partitions....

 

i tried HDSC - sectorcopy in SpartaDos X, which should theoretically do the job, but it takes several hours to copy 32MB partition. I ended up with few errors too. I guess there might be some other way how to do this.

 

I recall i've done this already via some dump functionality - it was superfast - i just simply cannot remember what tool I used (all i remember it looked like FDISK).

 

Any hints?

 

thank you kindly,

Marco

[flashjazzcat]

Use RespeQt and install the PCLINK.SYS driver on the Atari SIDE. Even at moderate POKEY divisors, it's probably going to be a bit faster when writing to a virtual drive on the PC.

 

Other than that: get U1MB and back up your APT partitions straight onto ATRs in FAT partitions. I've backed up 32MB partitions in 25 minutes or so with HDSC using this method.

Edited March 3, 2019 by flashjazzcat

[+Nezgar]

Hmm I haven't tried using HDSC yet, I should look into that. First thought I'm not sure RespeQt can serve 512byte sector ATR's?

 

So far I've just used the SpartaDOS X COPY /B command. From the manual:

"The '/B' option enables the program to create backups. It copies all specified entries and applies the +A attribute to mark those files already being saved in a backup. When used next time, it only copies files, which have been created or updated since the last backup. See ATR command for more details on attributes."

 

It will allow you to copy to an ATR with a different physical sector size, and on consecutive passes or if there are errors, it will be a little faster since it will resume copying only remaining files without the archive attribute set.

 

EDIT: ah yes, as FJC indicated, a PCLINK.SYS destination would be nice too, overall SIO speed will be faster too because it uses very large sector "block" transfers. File date/timestamps are also preserved when the files land on the host OS filesystem too.

[mchorvat]

thank you both! i ended up using COPY /B for now which works perfect for backing up thanks to setting +A attribute.

[Marius]

I keep complete CF-backups images on my Mac using the dd. command in Mac OS X.

That is why I do not want to use TOO big CF cards. I have now a 256MB cf card in use, so backups do not take too much time. After dd I zip the image.

[Rybags]

In Windows you could use a program such as HDDRawCopy to dump the entire media to a file.

 

The pain of raw dumps whether created from PC or Atari is that you can't easily grab individual Atari files off it - but with a bit of playing around you should be able to mount raw images in Altirra.

[dimfil]

I used Win32 Disk Imager to create an image of my cf for the side2. In fact, just to save time, I mounted this image in Altirra as Side2 CF and then I partitioned it, placed various files etc and finally wrote it back to real cf using again Disk Imager.

Of course now I just use the fat formatted part of the card for transfers...

Edited March 5, 2019 by dimfil

[Marius]

In Windows you could use a program such as HDDRawCopy to dump the entire media to a file.

 

The pain of raw dumps whether created from PC or Atari is that you can't easily grab individual Atari files off it - but with a bit of playing around you should be able to mount raw images in Altirra.

 

This is of course totally true. This kind of backups are more for total image. The real important backups (files) are on ATR's in my case. Sometimes I screw a complete partition or disk up, and then this total-image I created becomes very handy.