[NTLK] Backing up to ATA CF

[Stephen Hankins]

Hi Morgan, Woody, & Marisa!

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

I was able to do a backup of my eMate using SBM Utilities. I chose to back up the whole ball of wax, both stores and packages. When I examine the backup using the Restore function in SBM, everything appears to be in place. I have not attempted an actual restore, however, which I suppose I would need to do in order to be certain that all has gone according to plan.

I appreciate Woody's suggestion about beaming across the ATA drivers, should a Restore from CF be necessary at some point after a brain wipe.

I have a 4MB card arriving today (along with an upgraded MP2000) that I hope will prove to be 5v and thus eMate write-compatible. If so, I will use that as my failsafe backup. What is nice about the SBM backup onto CF is the possibility of easily saving multiple backups, so that, if I screw something up royally, I might be able to return the Newton to some previous, more stable state (at least that's my thinking, which may or may not be reasonable).

I also need to play with the ATA Support options to see if I can use one of the volumes I create with it to stash packages that I don't want active on the Newton. For example, in sorting out my SMTP issues, I plan to uninstall Mail V and try Simple Mail. It would be nice to be able to stash the Mail V-related packages on a card and then unmount it while trying Simple Mail. Obviously, I can use beaming form the MP2000 in the same way, but I fancy the unmounted card option. On the other hand, I could be thinking about this all wrong. (But thinking about it, right or wrong, has got to be better for my brain health than working endless crossword puzzles!)

Cheers!

Greg
____________________________
Greg Hankins
Happy Hank's Honey House
Mt. Gilead, NC
ghankins at mac.com


On Nov 5, 2014, at 7:47 AM, Morgan Aldridge <morgant at makkintosshu.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, November 5, 2014, Woody Smith <woodysmith at me.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> On Nov 4, 2014, at 10:00 PM, Stephen Hankins <ghankins at mac.com
>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I have installed Paul Guyot's ATA Support and have successfully
>> partitioned a 32MB Canon Compact Flash Card, using a Transcend CF Adaptor.
>>> 
>>> The CF card functions as a normal store (i.e., I can file things on it).
>> But it does not trigger the usual message from the Newton OS asking if I
>> want to back up onto it. Should I expect that? Or should I expect to have
>> to use something like SBM utilities to create backups?
>> 
>> 
> 
>> IIRC you need to use SBM utilities to backup to ATA card.
>> Since the ATA drivers would be lost with a brain wipe you would lose your
>> ability to read the card until the ATA package is reinstalled.
>> If you have a second newton device you can beam the package if necessary.
>> 
> 
> It's probably still in the ATA drivers README or something, but it used to
> be noted in Paul Guyot's site that the ATA drivers don't support
> backup/restore. He sort of left that as an exercise for whomever might pick
> up the project after him, but nobody has.
> 
> I use SMB Utilities as part of my all-too-infrequent backup process, but
> have never tried it with my CF card I use with the ATA drivers. That is the
> most likely way to get it to work, but I'd suggest not having any important
> data on your CF card before attempting it. If you do, let us know how it
> goes. I'll have to give it a shot at some point as well.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Morgan
> ---
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