File system dump and restoration

[Michael R. Johnston]

On our Altos machines at work we have a utility called "dump.hd" which
dumps the entire root filesystem to tape. By using this program on
can create a COMPLETE image of the hard drive that can be used to restore
a crashed system etc. 

Looking through the SCO Xenix manuals I note the statement:

	"It is not possible to completely restore an active root filesystem."

I can understand SCO's reasons for this however I sense that there must be a
way to do this. It would make my life much easier since if a system crashed
I'd only need to use the following steps (as I do on the Altos) to restore
the entire system:

	1- Boot from floppy
	2- Restore root file system to hard drive.
	3- Boot from hard drive.
	4- Restore the most recent tar backup (data files.).

By following these steps I have a complete re-installation WITHOUT having
to manually restore the O/S. Does anyone know of a reliable way of doing
this? I've been told that "dd" will not do the job.

Thanks.
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Michael R. Johnston
System Administrator                           rutgers!lilink!mikej
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