Paul Zarnowski asks:
> I am looking for a set of instructions/tools/etc that ADSM users can use
> to recover their system in the event of a boot-disk failure. I am looking
> for something more than: (1) re-install the OS, (2) re-install the network
> adapter, (3) re-install the networking software, (4) re-install ADSM, and
> (5) restore your disk with ADSM.
>
> Ideally, the process would not require use of the user's hard disk when
> performing the restore (other than to restore the files to). We have
> put together instructions for the Macintosh and for OS/2 systems, but we
> are looking for solutions for Windows (primarily) and Unix systems.
> The more "cook book" the instructions are, the better.
>
> For Windows, I am looking for a solution that does not involve the use
> of the DOS or OS/2 ADSM clients. If someone even just has some thoughts
> about how to approach this, I'd appreciate hearing from them.
Why wouldn't you want to use the OS/2 ADSM client? Overall I'd say that's
the best solution, plus it's one less type of bootable media you have to
maintain.
But that's not what you asked about. It sounds like you explicitly want
a bootable Windows client.
I can help you with the Windows client, but I haven't tackled UNIX yet.
I have created a procedure for creating bootable Windows diskettes.
Well, that's not exactly true. I don't believe that it is possible to
boot Windows from diskette, so your criterion for not using the hard
drive can't be met.
I like to call my system "Tiny Windows". It is a stripped-down version
of Windows that, when compressed into a pair of self-extracting
executables, fits onto two diskettes (plus a boot/utility diskette).
Essentially the diskettes consist of:
DISK0 - A DOS boot diskette containing miscellaneous utilities that you'd
like to have in the event of an emergency, like FDISK, FORMAT,
a text editor, etc.
DISK1 - The first "Tiny Windows" self-extracting executable.
DISK2 - The second "Tiny Windows" self-extracting executable.
To use this system, first you boot up with DISK0 and prepare the hard
drive, i.e. partition and format. Next, you extract "Tiny Windows" from
the diskettes and store them on the hard drive. Everything installs into
a directory called "TINYWIN". TINYWIN includes a miniature versions of
Windows, network connectivity via TCP/IP, and a minimal ADSM client.
Special CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and NET.CFG files are also put on
the disk. The whole process from boot to extract takes less than 5
minutes.
Once you've extracted the "Tiny Windows" files, you reboot the system,
start Windows, and you're all set to start the restore. Once you're
done, you just need to delete the TINYWIN directory.
This system works pretty well and I have used it successfully "under
fire". It's fairly easy to build. The primary drawback is that it
requires some hard disk space before you start the restore, so if
you're *real* tight on disk space, you might not be able to restore
everything with one RESTORE operation. "Tiny Windows" consumes less
than 7 MB of hard disk space.
I'd be happy to share my process. I based it on IBM's PC DOS 6.3,
Windows 3.1, the Novell NetWare DOS client, and Novell's TCP/IP
protocol stack. I imagine that adapting the process for a different
network setup wouldn't be too difficult.
If you are interested, let me know.
Andy Raibeck
Connecticut Mutual
203-987-3521
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