
                       A Crash Recovery Tour!


               DISASTER PREVENTION AND DATA RECOVERY WITH WIN95
                    Copyright 1995 by Phil Leonard

 Things are good! You just upgraded your machine to Win 95 and everything
 runs pretty smoothly. Then one day, your system Crashes. Your hard drive
 is Toast.  Are you prepared for this sort of disaster? If not, then this
 column is for you. I will take you on a tour. A Crash Recovery tour with a
 live demonstration. You will get step by step instructions on how to
 prepare your own Disaster Prevention and Data Recovery Strategy.

 By now, you should have noticed, that it is not as easy to backup and
 restore data using Windows95 as it was with Windows 3.x. Your choices are
 the same, backup and restore in DOS,  or load Windows and restore. But now
 you must protect your Long File Names. 16 bit Win 3.X utilities no longer
 work properly in Win95. In order to use DOS based backup utilities, you
 must save and restore Long File Names. So this must become a part of your
 Disaster Prevention Strategy.

 Follow me then, through a simulated crash. The sacrificial lamb, so to
 speak, is an old Maxtor 250MB hard drive.  Let me swap out the drives now,
 and install the blank Maxtor drive. I will be using a Conner  250 / QIC 80
 tape backup drive in Windows with Win95's Backup program and a Conner 3200
 / Travan tape backup drive in DOS with Arcada's  Backup Exec Software.


 WIN95 DISASTER PREVENTION
 If you have not already done this, you must create a Win 95 System Disk on
 a blank floppy. Go into Control Panel (Start | Settings | Control Panel)
 and open Add/Remove Programs. Select the Startup Disk tab and press the
 Create Disk button.

 With Notepad, open c:\autoexec.bat and print out a copy. Remove all of the
 Rem statements Win95 created and remove all of the directory switches.
 (Rem LH C:\Windows\command\MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:MSCD000 /M:9 /L:J becomes   LH
 MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:MSCD000 /M:9 /L:J)

 Save this newly created Autoexec.bat to your floppy in the A:\ drive. Here
 is an example:


 Open C:\Config.sys and print out a copy. Remove all of the Rem statements
 Win 95 created and remove all of the directory switches.  (I.e.rem
 devicehigh=c:\dos\mouse.sys becomes devicehigh=mouse.sys) Save this new
 Config.sys to your floppy in the A:\ drive. Here is an example:


 Take the two printouts for your Autoexec.bat and Config.sys and open
 Explorer. Reading line by line, copy each driver needed from your C:\
 drive to your A:\ drive. ( copyC:\windows\command\mscdex.exe to the floppy
 in your A:\ drive.) You will find emm.386 and himem.sys in your C:\Windows
 directory.

 Test out your Emergency System Disk. Exit Windows and shut off your
 machine. Restart with your Emergency System Disk in the A:\ drive. When
 you see Starting Windows 95 press the F8 function key. Step through each
 config.sys and autoexec.bat line on the floppy. Be sure each driver loads
 properly and then fine tune accordingly. Once everything seems to be
 working properly, we can continue.

 WIN 95 BACKUP IN DOS

 1. Download a free program called DOSLFNBK v 1.0 by Duncan Murdoch. You
 can ftp it from
 ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win95/sysutil/doslfn10.zip. This program
 is an adaptation of LFNBK.EXE included on the Win95 CD. If for some reason
 you do not have the ability to download DOSLFNBK.EXE, you can follow the
 readme included on the CD. (CD:\ADMIN\APPTOOLS\LFNBACK\Lfnbk.exe &
 Lfnbk.txt)

 2. Exit Windows and restart in DOS. Do not just shell to DOS. Create
 backup copies of all of your Long File Names  by running DOSLFNBK.EXE for
 each hard drive on your system. You can create a small batch if you
 prefer. You can leave the backup created on the hard drive so that it ends
 up on the backup tape. You do not need to keep DOSLFNBK.EXE on the
 Emergency System Disk.

 To Back Up Long File Names on your C:\ Drive to the file name
 C:\BACKUP.LFN: At the C:\ drive type DOSLFNBK C:\  /V To Back Up Long File
 Names on your D:\ Drive to the file name D:\BACKUP.LFN:

        At the D:\ drive type DOSLFNBK D:\  /V

 3. Start your DOS based Backup program and prepare your backup.

 Tip: Be sure to select all Hidden, System and Read Only Files.
 Tip: Be careful not to overwrite Backup.lfn. Keep each drive separate.

 WIN 95 RECOVERY IN DOS

 1. Start your system with the Emergency System Disk in the A:\ drive.
 2. FDISK to partition the drive.
 3. Type "Format C: /s" to format and transfer the system.
 4. Install your tape backup software.
 5. Restore all the files on your system from your backup tape in DOS.

 IMPORTANT:
 You should not overwrite IO.SYS, but you SHOULD overwrite
 MSDOS.SYS. It is a hidden read-only system file in your root direc-tory. A
 good way is to erase MSDOS.SYS before starting the restore use ATTRIB from
 the startup disk to remove the system, hidden, read-only attributes. Type
 in ATTRIB MSDOS.SYS -H -S -R then DEL MSDOS.SYS). Then tell your backup
 program not to overwrite existing files.

 6. Restore your Long File Names
                                LOCK C:
                                DOSLFNBK C:\   /R /V
                                and if you have a D:\ partition:
                                LOCK D:
                                DOSLFNBK D:\   /R /V

    Reboot your system and things should be back as they were.

 WIN 95 BACKUP AND RECOVERY FROM WITHIN WINDOW
 The other option you have is to restore Win 95 with the backup utility
 Microsoft Backup, included with Windows 95. This procedure requires that
 you re-install Windows 95 and then restore your backup tape. Although
 backing up a system in DOS is as easy as backing up a system in Windows,
 it is certainly easier to restore a system from Windows than it is to
 restore a system from DOS. This option is not always available to everyone
 due to incompatible tape drives.

 1.  Start your system with the "Emergency System Disk" in the A:\
      drive.

 2. FDISK to partition the drive.

 3. Type "Format C: /s" to format and transfer the system.

 4. If you have the CD version of Win95 to install, select that drive
     and type SETUP and enter. If you have the floppy version, install
     the first disk in the A:\ drive, select the A:\ drive and type SETUP
     and enter. Install Windows95.

 5. In Windows, select Microsoft Backup and restore your system.


 FINAL THOUGHTS

 It is important to be prepared for a disaster. Unlike previous versions of
 Windows, you can not simply copy your system from one drive to another
 without losing all of the hundreds of Long File Names present on a typical
 Win95 system. Therefore you must prepare a strategy. You should test out
 the strategy in the event of a disaster. This only makes good computer
 sense.  Enjoy!

 PHIL'S WIN 95 TIP OF THE MONTH

 Make the Win 95 START MENU really work for you. Instead of just adding
 shortcuts to the START MENU, add new FOLDERS. When you add a folder to the
 START MENU it creates a cascading effect. Folders within folders create
 menus within menus. Right click on the START BUTTON | OPEN | NEW | FOLDER
 and fill in a menu name. Open the new folder, and either drag in
 shortcuts, create new short-cuts, or add more folders. Now you have plenty
 of room for program descriptions up to 70 characters long. When naming
 programs, add a space in between each L E T T E R like so. Move all of
 your frequent-ly used programs here. No more sifting through Program
 Manager Folders and menus. Programs you use most often are instantly
 avail-able at all times. And there is no limit to the number of programs
 or folders you can add. Stay tuned next month for my Win95 Tip of The
 Month.


 Phil Leonard continues to come up with these pithy road maps which solve
 problems.  This backup routine is no exception.  Phil is a regular
 WindoWatch contributor and is a Comptroller during the rest of the time.




                                     ww


