Re: using FAT floppies- a drawback
Quoting John Hasler (john@dhh.gt.org):
> Pollywog writes:
> > For instance, could I tar (recursively) /local/mail and copy all the
> > files to a floppy with the directory structure intact?
>
> Yes. Just like tape. Note, however, that one bad sector will make the tar
> unreadable. If you are going to do this you should test the floppies and
> not use any that aren't perfect. The simplest way to test floppies is to
> format them.
This is one reason I use zip for all files I put on FAT disks,
even if they're already compressed. Just typing unzip -t /floppy/*
is enough to test them all, and you can even recover information
if the zipfiles break. Other reasons are, of course, preservation
of long filenames and meta information as with .t{ar,gz} files.
Cheers,
--
Email: d.wright@open.ac.uk Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
Disclaimer: These addresses are only for reaching me, and do not signify
official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.
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