By: Rolly Green - rollyg@attcanada.net
The file is ROBOSV.ZIP and you can pick it up from the IBM EWS site, it is FREE
and worth a hell-of-a-lot more.
ftp://ftp.pc.ibm.com/pub/pccbbs/os2_ews/
One can use either a web browser, or an FTP app to d/l it. There is a text file
just over 39k and the zip file of just over a 100k.
Unzip ROBOSAVE into a directory of your choice. That is all there is to the installation!
Well, one has to configure a file, actually edit one file!
I chose to put mine on my maintenance drive. I selected this drive because it
is not normally used in any of my operations at any time, thus with a bad shutdown
it is -still clean-. (The system marks (flags), drives that it uses in it's course
of operations, as =dirty= [i.e. used]). Thus on a bad shutdown I can boot to this
drive without fear (or less fear), that something being corrupted.
Now open the file ROBOSAVE.SMP with your favourite editor, and scroll down.
Edit the line: save=a:\robosave
Put in the full path to where you want to SAVE the backup to, and then create
that directory on the drive indicated. (Mine now reads: F:\ROBOBAK)
The next line reads: savenum=5
I left this at 5, you can change it to any number you wish, but I
wouldn't go less than 2 though.
Be warned though that backups can use a few megs each, so be sure to have at
least 2 megs for each backup desired. In my case I would need at least 10 megs free.
There are some of us that can remember asking, "How are we EVER going to fill
up a 10 meg drive!"
The next line is: log=t
I changed this from the default. This keeps the log file in with the saved data.
The default puts the log file in the directory that contains the robosave.pro file.
One other line to change is: robo=C:\ROBOSAVE.PRO
Change this to the directory where you have put your robosave.pro Mine is: F:\ROBOSAVE\ROBOSAVE.PRO
Now save this file as ROBOSAVE.PRO into your robosave directory. That's it! No
need to reboot, it doesn't change any config.files, or anything else for that matter.
She's ready to go!
Open up an OS/2 window, change to your robosave directory and type in:
ROBOSAVE
Hit the enter key, and sit back.
To restore, is just as simple. Open a command prompt, goto the directory where
the backup is, type at the prompt:
ROBOREST
It does tell you during the restore, that a better restore is possible if you
let robosave delete the Desktop directory. Let it do it, things are buggered anyway,
nothing to lose at this stage! Roborest then deletes the desktop directory on C:
(or where ever it made the backup from), and installs the backup. Reboot to a sight
you'll be so happy to see!!
One other thing.
Robosave will not do a restore unless the system it is restoring FROM, is the
same as the system it is restoring TO.
My maintenance drive is set up with Warp3, not Warp4. (I could never get the
OS2BOOT prog to do a successful maintenance partition, so I just installed a minimum
Warp3). When I went to do the restore, I booted to my maintenance drive, Warp3,
and roborest told me that it couldn't do the install to my C: drive, (where Warp4
is), because they were not the same systems.
So I booted up Warp4, and brought it to a command line. <ALT><F1>
at the OS/2 blob in the top left corner change directory to my F:\drive and directory
with the ROBOBAK DIR on it. entered ROBOREST, and away she went. From the time I
discovered my system was buggered until I was back running again, was less than
5 minutes!
One can also boot from floppies and get to the ROBOSAVE directory and then proceed.
Enjoy and be safe!
Editor note: From Dick Kurtz, the author of Robosave: "There is a Warp 4
update I just haven't had time to release that has a couple new parameters to support
Warp 4's Maintenance Desktop (/m) and Archives directories (/a)."