The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Beginners' Bytes: Part 3
Ron Wilby

Hello all you beginners. Also welcome to those who read these pages just for a laugh, why not, you've paid your membership fees. This month I'm really going to finish telling you about that "Disaster Recovery Disk" (see parts 1 & 2 of this series).

Making Your Panic Disk

Also known as your Disaster Recovery Disk. Opinions vary as to exactly what this should contain, but the first essential item is that you must have a Bootable floppy disk. A bootable disk is one which, when placed in drive A: before you switch on, will get your computer going. First get to your DOS prompt (see Part 1 of this series). If you have the DOS menu on screen, exit by pressing Alt+F4 (for DOS versions 5 or 6).

Your Disaster Disk

Now take a good quality new floppy disk of size suitable for the maximum capacity of your disk drive. If you have a fairly recent machine, this will be 1.2 MB for 5.25-inch disks or 1.44 MB for 3.5-inch disks. Put this disk in your floppy drive and carefully type the command  FORMAT A: /S

Check that you have specified drive A: and press Enter. Formatting will start, and you must wait a minute or two. Note that formatting may be unnecessary if you have bought already formatted disks. DOS versions 5 and 6 perform "safe" formats, which means you can use the UNFORMAT command to recover from an accidental loss of data. Earlier versions destroy all data when FORMAT is used. I don't know how "safe" the format on bought disks is, but it doesn't matter. After formatting, DOS will tell you System transferred
and invite you to give the disk a Volume Label. Just type the name you want and press Enter. DOS will then give you details about the format, such as:

 1213952 bytes total disk space 
1213952 bytes available on disk

512 bytes in each allocation unit 
2371 allocation units available on disk

Watch for bad sectors (parts of the disk which cannot be used) at this point. If there are any, throw the disk away or return it to the shop for a refund.

Copying Files to Your Disaster Disk

Whatever files you need to restore your Application Programs will be available from the original program disks you bought. You will need to read the Manual and go through the Installation process to get your applications running. Your hard work in the form of documents, database or spreadsheet will have to be restored from your backup system, whatever it may be. If you have used DOS Backup and Restore then you will be able to restore your data. If you are using another backup, such as PC Tools, then you need the appropriate files copied to - our Disaster Disk. Also, there are some files which

may be helpful to have already on your that Disk. Very important are your "Startup Files," CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, but these cannot be used at startup after a total loss of hard disk data, since not all the files they call for will be available at first.

With your disk in A:, and the C:>\ prompt showing, type
 COPY CONFIG.SYS A:

and press Enter. You should get a message
 1 file(s) copied.

Now type
COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT A:

and that file will be copied too.

We must now RENAME these two files so that DOS will not use them as "Startup" files, but they will be available for you to copy to your hard disk later in the recovery process.

So, type A: and press Enter at your prompt, and you should see your A:>\ prompt.

Then type
REN CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.OLD

and press Enter, Then type
 REN AUTOEXEC.BAT AUTOEXEC.OLD

and press Enter. Type DIR to give you a directory (list) of the files on your Disaster Disk to check that the whole process has been successful. Other useful files to copy to your Disk are:
 FORMAT.COM 
FDISK.EXE 
UNFORMAT.COM 
SYS.EXE 
XCOPY.EXE 
UNDELETE.EXE 
EDLIN.EXE

These files will reside on your hard disk, probably in C:>\DOS, so you just copy them as described above for CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Depending on the exact disaster, you may need to restore the CMOS settings you are currently using. A disk from the Shareware library, MELB 1977 can be used to make a copy of your current CMOS settings. If you are a real beginner, you may need some help here, but beware of the well-intentioned friends mentioned by Dave Mitchell in our October issue. Alternatively, PC Tools makes a Recovery Disk for you.

Putting your disaster disk in drive A: and switching on will start your computer. DOS will ask you to enter the date and time, but if your clock is still OK. just press Enter at both of those. You should now be looking at the prompt A:>\. From this point you can reconstruct a totally blank hard disk by following the Installation procedures given in the Manuals of your programs. You may need to FORMAT the hard disk first from your Disaster Disk, using the command FORMAT C: /S. The format program will be on your Disaster Disk (see below). Start by reinstalling DOS so that you have available all the basic commands such as COPY, DIR, and DISKCOPY.

Buying or Upgrading? 

Now, I'm going to assume that some of you may not yet have bought your computer or may be considering an upgrade, and throw in some of my observations about the buying process. 

Lesson One 

If you are about to buy, consider the following

  1. You need a friend or anyway, someone to talk to. Please follow the rules listed on the Dial Help pages.
  2. Choose your shop carefully. The Age Green Guide (every Thursday) will be a great help here. You want your dealer close to your computer. You are bound to have questions, especially at first, and you don't have time or money to travel 15 km every time. Avoid telling them you are a complete beginner. Many of the sales people you will encounter know less than you. Try them out, ask questions (doesn't matter if they're silly). Evaluate the answers. Were they given freely or did you feel you were being a nuisance? Don't buy anything now, go home and think it over. Try (this is hard) to buy from a shop that has been in that location for some reasonable time (years).
  3. Look for a shop that has some service facilities. Walk in and ask about an (invented) problem you have with your machine, can they do service work? Stick your nose in their workshop if you can (if they have one). Ask about their charges.
  4. If you buy a system, insist that it is set up and tested in your home. If you don't, you may end up as I did in my very early days. I had a room full of boxes, worked hard to connect them all, and nothing at all on the screen. Setup and testing are part of the deal and should be included in the price. If they won't do it, go somewhere else. There are plenty of shops.
  5. Be clear about what you are going to buy. There are many decisions to be made here. Let me try to help with these in this and future parts of "Beginners' Bytes." Don't spend your last dollar on a super fast computer and have no money left for a printer, software or any other needs. Be sure that you have an operating system included in the price, DOS version 5 would be my suggestion, if you can find a copy. If not, Version 6, but I quote from something which landed on my desk today "DOS 6 has quickly earned a reasonably bad reputation." This seems to be usually because of DoubleSpace, and I think there has been enough written about that particular utility. I've had no bother with DOS 6, but I don't use DoubleSpace. Make sure that you get DOS manuals with your system. If you don't it's very likely you have an illegal copy of DOS. Be aware that software may cost you more than the system hardware, and fines for illegal copies will cost you even more than that.
Some Hardware Decisions

The Computer. What processor (CPU) will you go for. The CPU is the "Brain" of the whole system. It goes under names like 286, 386, 486, the price increasing with each change in the first digit. The full list in order of increasing price and speed is:
8088
286
386SX
386DX
486SX
486DX
Pentium 		Used in the PC XT. Don't buy one now, the XT is quite outdated.
(proper name 80286), the heart of the PC AT. Now obsolescent.
(80386SX) The lowest and slowest of currently acceptable processors.
This is the one you should be thinking of buying.
A down-market 486. Avoid this one.
The most affordable high-range system.
The top-line of current technology.

The 386 and 486 processors can manage memory. The 8088 and 286 cannot. With memory managers you can have enormous memories of up to 16 MB. The processor will look after what goes where and you will never see that message "not enough memory . . . " They can also maximise the amount of "conventional" memory available to run those programs that can only use conventional. Also the 386 and 486 can run any software now available or likely to be available in the near future. My advice is, start from the top. Buy a 486DX if you can possibly manage it, but leave yourself some money for other things. The lowest processor you should buy is a 386, and get the DX version if the bank manager permits.

The Monitor. Your first decision is monochrome (single colour, may be green, amber, white) or full colour. Mono is OK if you are only using text and will save you quite a few dollars. Colour has big advantages in making your programs easier to use, because usually you can choose the on-screen colours to suit your eye and different parts of the screen will stand out because of contrasting colours. Buy the very best monitor you can afford, you are going to spend a lot of time looking at it. Using a second-rate monitor will soon drive you mad and you will go out to spend money on a better one. Look at the edges of the screen for straight lines which aren't and for fuzzy characters. Compare the colours of top brands with cheaper ones. I have an NEC 3D VGA monitor that is now nearing four years old and it is still a delight to use.

Printer. Your choice here depends on what you will do with the printed output. 9-pin dot-matrix printers are very cheap, can be quite fast but produce very poor quality work. If you are going for dot-matrix, buy a 24-pin machine, but check the print quality and compare it with the low-cost lasers now available for perhaps $1200. They are fast and the quality is excellent.

Keyboard. There are some lousy keyboards around, so try before you buy, you will easily pick the good from the bad.

Floppy Disk Drives. Your first drive should be a 5.25-inch 1.2 MB drive, but you really need two drives. Shareware uses mostly 5.25-inch and this is the preferred size for the "hobbyist", but your second drive should be a 3.5-inch, as this size is now preferred in lots of areas. I personally prefer to have two drives of the same size as it is a much faster system for making copies, making backups etc. That means you need three floppy drives.

Hard Disk Drive. Try for a 200 MB disk, it won't cost all that much more than a smaller one and you will use all that space eventually! (1 MB = about 1 million bytes. A byte is a letter, digit or character). Well, beginners, that's all for this month. Be with you again next time. 

Reprinted from the November 1993 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia