Re: vfat to ext3 without data loss

[Mike McCarty <Mike.McCarty@sbcglobal.net>]

Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Thursday 06 April 2006 07:01, Mike McCarty wrote:
>
>
> > C:\> pkzip -a -ex -p -r some_dir some_dir\*.*
> > C:\> pkunzip -t some_dir
> > C:\> deltree/y some_dir
>
>
> I seem to recall a long time ago that pkzip and pkunzip have an entirely 
> different set of flags, all starting with / in DOS.  Consult pk(un)zip /? 
> before attempting just in case.

I am quite proficient in the use of pkzip for MSDOS. Switches may begin
either with '-' or with '/', and these are the MSDOS switches.

Here are the meanings of the switches, as given

pkzip:
	-a	add files
	-ex	use extra compression (trade speed for space)
	-p	preserve path names
	-r	recurse paths, and preserve recursed path names

pkunzip:
	-t	test archive for integrity

I didn't suggest -exx (extreme compression) because only the
last version of pkzip for MSDOS had that, and not everyone
got it, as (IIRC) it was not released as shareware.

Note that for Windows it is better to use WinZip since it
can preserve case in file names.

Also, naturally, one should not delete the directories if the
test of the archive fails. I didn't mention that, because it
seemd too self-evident. Perhaps I should have.

> > By far, the best way to go, if you simply refuse to do a backup,
> > is simply to buy/borrow/beg/steal another disc and do a copy using
> > Linux. After all data have been verified correct, reformat the original
> > disc and copy back. Then return the borrowed disc.
>
>
> You might want to do a dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/borrowed-disk if you don't 
> want the owner knowing what was on the borrowed disk and intend to return it.

I'd think that if=/dev/zero might be just a tad faster, but I suppose
that the action will be I/O bound by the disc anyway. If one is really
worried, though, a simple overwrite is not enough. Partial or even
complete data recovery might be possible. I'm not an expert on
data destruction.

Mike
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