[Info-vax] Backup restore system disk

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2020-08-17 15:57:54 +0000, Randy Hancock said:

> I'm having issues with my VAX/VMS v6.0 system that I suspect may be 
> related to fragmentation. I want to do a "backup restore" but am 
> concerned about the system disk.
> 

There's documentation on how to get a reliable backup of your system 
disk included in the OpenVMS documentation, in the System Managers doc 
and in the Install and Upgrade doc.
Bootable OpenVMS VAX is easier and available with "fairly recent" 
OpenVMS VAX (bootable OpenVMS VAX root on the media), and standalone 
BACKUP is older and limited but also workable.
Online BACKUP of an active system disk or of active apps—and 
particularly anything necessarily using BACKUP /IGNORE=INTERLOCK—won't 
be reliable.
If you're short on some unspecified resources—fragmentation usually 
also involves too few headers, or not enough storage, or poor 
allocation defaults—now would be the time to identify and address those.
That'd be an INITIALIZE command, and then a BACKUP {whatever} 
/NOINITIALIZE sequence.
While you're messing with this, creating a BACKUP saveset would be 
useful, as it'll give you something to restore should there be problems 
later.
V6.0? Really? How quaint.



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