These are the steps I followed in backing up my 400 meg OS/2 boot drive onto two 100 meg disks in a parallel port Iomega Zip drive, with the solid InfoZip compression program. This assumes you already have a parallel port Iomega Zip drive operating in OS/2. The drivers for OS/2 are available at Hobbes and on Pete Norloff's OS2 BBS . I think I might have gotten them from Compuserve. Mine is a FAT system, so if you're using an HPFS system you'll have to look into how that affects things. I'm not sure it does, since the centerpiece here is the Info zip utility (v. 2.0.1, file date 9-19-93), which preserves EA's inside zip files which don't themselves have EA's. Therefore I don't think you have to worry about doing a format of the Zip disk to HPFS. Zip and unzip are available at lots of places. Typing "zip" and "unzip" at the commmand line tells you their switches. I haven't yet gotten around to looking at the newer versions that were published this year. Here goes: 1. Make OS/2 utility (boot) diskettes. I did this by starting with the "Create Utility Diskettes" icon under the "System Setup" icon in "OS/2 System." Add to the CONFIG.SYS file on the #2 disk [officially called DISK 1] the line "DEVICE=A:\OAD\OS2.SYS" (no quotes). I also added: libpath=.;\;a:\; and changed the set path and dpath to: set path=\;a:\; set dpath=\;a:\; I'm not sure what if any of that was necessary since my main problem in getting the Zip drive to work turned out to be trying to put the drivers in A:\ rather than in A:\OAD. But those config.sys lines are as above now, and they work. In the course of experimenting to make things work I also added three other DLL files. See the complete directory listing for my customized OS/2 Utility Diskette #2 below. One or another of the added DLL's may or may not be necessary. I think I also added TEDIT and TEDIT.HLP And of course you need to copy ZIP.EXE and UNZIP.EXE to that disk. 2. ZIP driver. Make a directory named OAD on Utility Diskette #2--the one with CMD.EXE and CONFIG.SYS on it. Don't bother trying any other directory name. There isn't room to get all of your OAD files onto the floppy disk with all the DLL files that are already there. Use a file viewer such as LIST or HYPERVIEW to look in the customized files CONFIG.OAD, GENOAD.MAP, and CONFIG.MAP in your hard drive OAD directory to help you guess which files might be necessary with your machine to make the boot disk work the Zip drive, and copy files to A:\OAD accordingly. The ones I ended up with are shown in the complete directory listing for my customized OS/2 Utility Diskette #2, below. I did not end up having to rerun GENOAD, so GENOAD.EXE is definitely not necessary even though it's on there. Obviously you're going to have to experiment with booting with these utility disks to make sure you can access your Zip drive when you use these boot diskettes. 3. Directory listing. You need a file with a plain list of all the directories in your root directory looking like this: --------cut--- C:\OS2 C:\OS2_MOU C:\CMD C:\WP51 -------cut------ Here's how I did it: With the #2 utility disk [officially DISK 1] in drive A, run the command: dir c:\*.* /o:g /a > a:\zipback.lst [If your OS/2 drive is some drive other than c: then substitute that letter in place of c: in the command.] Edit a:\zipback.lst as follows: a. Delete all lines that aren't directory names. That includes headings and all names of root directory files. b. If there are any directory names with extensions, close up the spaces and insert the ".". Example: "SIO 153" becomes "SIO.153" c: Delete everything after the directory name on each line. (I used a word processor macro that searched for a space, deleted the remainder of the line, moved to the beginning of the next line and repeated until there were no more spaces in the file.) d: Add c:\ [or whatever drive] at the beginning of every line. (I used a word processor search and replace function to replace with C:\) 4. Make a conservative guess as to which of your directories with their files and subdirectories will fit, zipped with the files in your root directory, on one Zip disk. Move part of your directory list from a:\zipback.lst to a:\zipback1.lst according to your guess. If you underestimate what will fit there's no problem. You can add to it. If you overestimate what will fit on the disk when you run zip I don't know what happens. I didn't do that. 5. Make three batch (.cmd) files on the #2 (DISK 1) Utility disk. Each has just one line, so IGNORE ANY WRAP here, and put everything on one line with a space where the wrap occurred, for each of the three. Again, if you're doing a drive other than c:, substitute. ZIPC.CMD --------------cut---- a:\zip.exe -u -g -S drive-c1.zip c:\*.* -x c:\swapper.dat c:\ea?data.?sf --------------cut---- ZIPBACK1.CMD --------------cut---- type a:\zipback1.lst | a:\zip.exe -u -g -r -S -@ drive-c1.zip -x c:\os2\system\swapper.dat --------------cut---- ZIPBACK2.CMD --------------cut---- type a:\zipback2.lst | a:\zip.exe -u -g -r -S -@ drive-c2.zip -x c:\os2\system\swapper.dat --------------cut---- Here's the complete directory listing of what I ended up with on the #2 Utility Diskette. [There's a heretofore unmentioned file, ZIPBACK2.LST, which we'll get to.]: The volume label in drive A is DISK 1. The Volume Serial Number is E33F:B815. Directory of A:\ ANSICALL DLL 512 9-23-94 3:31a BKSCALLS DLL 512 9-23-94 3:32a BMSCALLS DLL 512 9-23-94 3:34a BVHINIT DLL 7999 10-09-94 7:03p BVSCALLS DLL 512 9-23-94 3:30a CLOCK01 SYS 3735 9-23-94 4:17a CLOCK02 SYS 3834 9-23-94 4:17a CMD EXE 91648 9-23-94 4:55a CONFIG SYS 510 9-20-96 8:32p COUNTRY SYS 25610 9-23-94 4:53a DOSCALL1 DLL 137084 10-07-94 12:52p EA DATA SF 9216 9-19-96 6:24p HARDERR EXE 14888 10-07-94 12:47p HPFS IFS 135746 9-23-94 4:38a IBM1FLPY ADD 30994 10-05-94 10:31p IBM1S506 ADD 27104 10-06-94 10:41p IBM2ADSK ADD 9798 10-05-94 10:32p IBM2FLPY ADD 13718 10-05-94 10:31p IBM2SCSI ADD 32373 10-03-94 1:39p IBMINT13 I13 9860 10-05-94 10:32p IBMKBD SYS 5548 10-03-94 2:21p KBDBASE SYS 27989 10-03-94 2:23p KBDCALLS DLL 1024 9-23-94 3:07a KEYBOARD DCP 137500 9-23-94 4:48a MOUCALLS DLL 1024 9-23-94 3:35a MSG DLL 512 9-23-94 3:17a NAMPIPES DLL 1024 9-23-94 3:34a NLS DLL 512 9-23-94 3:16a NPXEMLTR DLL 25504 9-23-94 5:07a OAD 9-20-96 6:53p OS2CHAR DLL 512 9-23-94 3:26a OS2DASD DMD 33562 10-05-94 10:30p OS2LOGO 19358 10-05-94 11:05p PRINT01 SYS 10910 10-03-94 2:38p PRINT02 SYS 10022 10-03-94 2:38p QUECALLS DLL 1024 9-23-94 3:19a RESOURCE SYS 27084 10-05-94 10:29p SCREEN01 SYS 9461 10-08-94 7:14p SCREEN02 SYS 9393 10-08-94 7:14p SESMGR DLL 1536 10-07-94 12:54a SIPANEL1 DLL 31312 10-08-94 1:07a SYSINST1 EXE 4960 10-25-94 4:06p TEDIT HLP 14596 9-01-94 6:52p TEDIT EXE 10820 9-23-94 5:21a UNZIP EXE 95795 8-29-94 11:40a VIOCALLS DLL 2048 9-23-94 3:28a VTBL850 DCP 10478 9-23-94 4:15a ZIP EXE 93232 9-19-93 1:04p ZIPBACK LST 1 9-21-96 9:15a ZIPBACK1 CMD 92 9-22-96 2:39p ZIPBACK1 LST 670 9-21-96 9:15a ZIPBACK2 LST 322 9-21-96 1:54a ZIPBACK2 CMD 92 9-22-96 2:39p ZIPC CMD 74 9-20-96 10:48p 54 file(s) 1144156 bytes used Directory of A:\OAD . 9-20-96 6:53p .. 9-20-96 6:53p CONFIG OAD 369 2-25-96 10:24p CONFIG MAP 199 2-25-96 10:15p CONFIG DEV 3765 10-10-95 2:34a GENOAD MSG 8828 10-10-95 2:34a GENOAD HLP 15670 10-10-95 2:34a GENOAD EXE 138101 10-10-95 2:34a IOM$ERR DAT 3119 10-10-95 2:34a IOM$MSG DAT 12416 10-10-95 2:34a NULLADP OPT 335 10-10-95 2:34a NULLADP ADP 1096 10-10-95 2:34a NULLDEV OPT 286 10-10-95 2:34a NULLDEV DEV 15489 10-10-95 2:34a OS2 SYS 10878 10-10-95 2:34a PPA OPT 499 10-10-95 2:34a PPA ADP 3146 10-10-95 2:34a PPA3 OPT 569 10-10-95 2:34a PPA3 ADP 10777 10-10-95 2:34a ZIP-100 OPT 436 10-10-95 2:34a ZIP-100 DEV 15489 10-10-95 2:34a 21 file(s) 241467 bytes used Total files listed: 75 file(s) 1385623 bytes used 54272 bytes free 6. Dual boot to DOS. 7. Reboot with the diskettes. 8. Make the Zip drive the current drive. [In other words, if it's drive E, get an [E:\] prompt. 9. Run ZIPC. This starts the file DRIVE-C1.ZIP on your Zip disk with just the files from your root directory. 10. Run ZIPBACK1. This will add to DRIVE-C1.ZIP the directories listed in A:\ZIPBACK1.LST, with their files and subdirectories. 11. If you've got lots of room left on the first Zip disk, rename A:\ZIPBACK1.LST to something else, move some more directory names from A:\ZIPBACK.LST to a new A:\ZIPBACK1.LST, go back to the Zip drive ([E:\] prompt) and rerun ZIPBACK1. Repeat until you've got the first 100 meg disk as full as you want to try to get it. [You might want to recombine the files listing the directories you've backed up so far into A:\ZIPBACK1.LST.] 12. Repeat steps 4, 10, and 11 with a fresh Zip disk, using ZIPBACK2.LST and ZIPBACK2.CMD in place of ZIPBACK1.LST and ZIPBACK1.CMD. This did it for me. Obviously you can go on to more disks if you need to. 13. If you like you can verify the integrity of your zip file with: zip -T drive-c1.zip Note that case is important with all the zip switches. You can also list the contents of the zip file with: unzip -l drive-c1.zip If you want to see the filenames in a file, use: unzip -l drive-c1.zip > c:\filelist 14. I have not, and don't plan to restore my whole zip file as a test. I have, however, done restoration of a file and a directory. You can do it like this (for example): a. Make a directory \TESTBACK on a drive with 25 megs or so of space. I'm going to assume it's drive c: b. Insert the Zip disk on which you backed up the directory you want to test. I'm going to use the \TCPIP directory as an example and assume it was in your ZIPBACK1.LST. Change to the Zip drive as the current drive. Do: unzip drive-c1.zip tcpip/*.* -d c:\testback Note the direction of the slash in "tcpip/*.*" and note there's nothing in front of the name. Those are important. If you want to see that the ea's are really there on your FAT system you can do, in c:\testback\tcpip: dir /n I leave it to you to get rid of c:\testback and all its subdirectories. Remember it has to be an OS/2 method to deal with the EA's. You might take a look at OS2-Commander. 15. If you ever do need a complete restore, the first thing you'll want to do is install the same version of DOS that you're running. I think you should know where your original DOS disks are, and have diskcopies of them. Use either format c: /b or sys c: to put the DOS system files in the right spot on the hard drive. Then, boot with your OS2 utility disks and restore your zip files. The procedure for that is of course: a. Get the [E:\] prompt [whatever the Zip drive is]; b. unzip *.zip -d c:\ [or whatever your OS/2 drive is]. Remember to SAY NO to overwriting the two DOS system files. The names vary. There's IO.SYS with MSDOS.SYS, and IBMDOS.COM with IBMBIO.COM. After everything's restored you'll be in DOS mode, as you were for this backup. Dual boot back to OS/2. Well that's all folks. If I've left something essential as well as a lot of basics, let me know. The lines of the .CMD files above are imported from the working files, so I don't think there's any mistake there. I'll answer mail, but I don't promise to solve any problems. Credit to Duane Chamblee for the example of using zip with a directory list and the -@ switch, contained in ZIPINS.ZIP at the OS2 BBS . Larry Scott scott@buffnet.net copyright 1996--distribute freely but give me credit, please