<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="SGML-Tools 1.0.9"> <TITLE>Backup-With-MSDOS mini-HOWTO: Preface/Introduction</TITLE> <LINK HREF="Backup-With-MSDOS-2.html" REL=next> <LINK HREF="Backup-With-MSDOS.html#toc1" REL=contents> </HEAD> <BODY> <A HREF="Backup-With-MSDOS-2.html">Next</A> Previous <A HREF="Backup-With-MSDOS.html#toc1">Contents</A> <HR> <H2><A NAME="s1">1. Preface/Introduction</A></H2> <P>Earlier I posed the question on the Net, how does one back up a Linux machine to a Colorado Jumbo 250 tape drive on an MS-DOS machine. From the email I received, it seems that this is a frequently pondered problem. Now that I've figured it out, I'm posting the method. If anybody wants to massage this into a HOWTO document, let me know. I should thank Jim Nance ( <A HREF="mailto:jlnance@isscad.com">jlnance@isscad.com</A>) for pointing out that an MS-DOS machine need not always be an MS-DOS machine. This technique should also work for any other tape drive supported by the ftape module, and for SCSI tape drives with suitable obvious changes (i.e. substituting /dev/st0 for /dev/ftape). <P>The criteria I set were that the resulting setup should be as secure as possible and should be fairly simple, and take up little or no space on the MS-DOS machine's hard drive. It should also be capable of recovering from the worst system corruptions, up to and including the theft of the hard disk, requiring a restore to a bare Linux file system. The technique described here uses no hard drive space on the MS-DOS machine, though it requires that that machine be assigned an IP#. You will need three formatted, blank 1.44MB diskettes. <HR> <A HREF="Backup-With-MSDOS-2.html">Next</A> Previous <A HREF="Backup-With-MSDOS.html#toc1">Contents</A> </BODY> </HTML>