NTLK Very strange Package Soup problems

From: Victor Rehorst (chuma@chuma.org)
Date: Wed Jun 21 2000 - 09:05:04 CDT


I've been having very strange problems with backups, my Package soup, and NCU for PC.

This all started when I wanted to backup my Newton to my desktop. But no matter how many times I tried, NCU would fail with the infamous -1 error, while trying to backup either System Information (the System Soup) or Packages. I fixed the System Information problem by firing up TrashPak and toasting some old entries. But I was still getting the -1 error every time I tried to backup. I decided that maybe it was time to order SBM utilites and make good use of its Doctor and Cleaner functions, so I ordered it.

While waiting for my reg code, I mentioned to Paul Guyot that I was having this problem, and that I hoped that SBM Utils would fix it. He informed me that a corrupt Package soup is basicially impossible to fix; I'd have to brainwipe and install all of my packages from scratch (thereby re-building the Packages soup). This is something I really didn't want to do.

So, my next idea was to try deleting some packages and then trying the backup again, hoping that I had toasted the nefarious entry. No dice. Around this time my reg code came from SBM, so I put it to good use, and it found some old invalid references in my System soup, but no problems with Packages. Damn.

I finally decided to brainwipe and reinstall my packages. I made two card backups (which worked, since card backups just make a copy of every soup, corruption and all), brainwiped, and started to reinstall. (I made sure I had a copy ov everything first). First though I restored all of my data (no packages) from the card, so that I'd keep my settings.

When I had reinstalled every package back to internal, I tried an NCU backup again. And STILL got the -1 error while backing up the Packages soup. ARG!

So I'm basicially out of ideas. I'm wondering if installing packages first and then restoring data from card would make a difference, but I don't see how it could.

I'm open to any suggestions, offers of help, kind words, etc. I'm waiting for two 6MB cards from Paul Braham, so if all else fails I guess I'll just use these cards for backups, live with the corruption, and never make an NCU backup again.

(Oh - this is on my MP2100, using NCU 1.0 under Windows 2000, NewtonOS patch 710031)

Victor Rehorst - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
victor@eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca - chuma@chuma.org - vrehorst@newted.dyndns.org
Sent from a Newton Messagepad 2100 with SimpleMail 4.0
http://www.chuma.org
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