TUNEBACKER HARD DRIVE BACKUP SYSTEM Welcome to TuneBacker Installing and Using the TuneBacker™ Backup System For those who have "died a thousand deaths" when their broadcast hard drive failed, there's no longer any doubt about the absolute necessity of a good backup system. For anyone who hasn't gone through it, trust us, you don't want to! Nor do you need to, now that there's an inexpensive, highly-reliable backup system available. TuneBacker™ is a "double-redundancy" backup system, providing you with the convenience of "always-available" backup plus the peace-of-mind of keeping a second backup stored in a secure location. In the instructions below we will cover both its installation and its routine use. If TuneBacker™ came pre-installed on your TuneTracker "Station-in-a-Box" computer system, there is no hardware or software installation required. You can proceed immediately to the "Using TuneBacker™" section near the bottom of this page. If you are installing TuneBacker™ on a pre-existing computer system, the hardware and software instructions are immediately below. NOTE:   Use extreme caution if installing the TuneBacker™ backup rack unit in an existing computer. If you are unsure whether you can safely do it yourself, we recommend you ask a local professional to assist you. TuneTracker Systems™ Will not be held responsible for damage caused to your computer system due to improper installation of the drive rack or removable drives. HARDWARE INSTALLATION Your TuneBacker™ package should include the following items: One drive rack for installation in your PC Two rack drawers containing pre-formatted hard drives Two keys for locking/unlocking the rack drive One installation CD (new) Instructions Emergency instructions in case the official instructions for installation become lost: Unplug computer Remove both computer side panels Remove front computer faceplate if possible Locate a free drive bay near your internal drive Break out that bay's internal metal panel Pop out that bay's plastic panel Slide rack drive in through front of cabinet until face is flush with front surface of computer Use screws on both sides to secure rack unit in drive bay Unplug ribbon cable from existing internal hard drive Plug ribbon cable's middle port into the backup drive Plug in the main drive using its original port on the ribbon cable Find an available power connection and plug in power to drive Put front and side computer panels back on Use key to ensure the drive is turned to "on" position Plug power back in and boot machine SOFTWARE INSTALLATION Insert the TuneBacker™ installation CD into your computer. Right-click on your computer's desktop background, move your mouse over the word "Mount," and left-click on "TuneBacker™" to mount the CD. The TuneBacker™ icon will appear on your desktop, or if you have the OpenTracker "Disks" feature enabled on your machine, look in "Disks" (normally in the upper left corner of your desktop) for the TuneBacker™ icon. Double-click the TuneBacker™ icon. Double-click the Install_TuneBacker file. At the end of the installation process, there will be a new "DoBackups" icon on your desktop. Another message will appear when installation is complete, which should happen almost instantly. After clicking "ok," this page of instructions should be automatically displayed. WHAT TUNEBACKER DOES TuneBacker, or more specifically, the DoBackups utility, will back up your main hard drive or hard drive volumes to the volumes on your backup drive. Your boot drive should be named BeOS1. Any additional drive volumes should be sequentially named as BeOS2, BeOS3, etc. Your Backup drive should be named Backup1. If there are multiple volumes on the backup drive, they should be sequentially named as Backup2, Backup3, etc. DoBackups is equipped to back up as many as four drive volumes to their corresponding volume names on the backup drive. Each time it runs, DoBackups copies every single file to your backup drive, without exception. This assures a full and complete backup. DOING A BACKUP MANUALLY You can launch DoBackups by simply double-clicking its icon. DoBackups will work quietly away in the background and you will see no activity onscreen. You may continue working on your computer normally while the backup is proceeding, though launching other processor-intensive tasks during the backup process such as generating logs or connecting to your TuneTracker computer from another computer via TT Anywhere, may put enough of a strain on the system to cause occasional jitters in your on-air broadcast, so take it a little easier than normal. When DoBackups is completed, you will be alerted by a popup message. LAUNCHING BACKUPS AUTOMATICALLY The real power of TuneBacker is in letting TuneTracker Command Center launch the backup process automatically. It's easy to set up too. Just add the following line to your master log(s): # Run /boot/home/config/bin/DoBackups & To assure it is exactly correct, we recommend you copy the line above and paste it into your log. You can run the backup however often you want, though we generally recommend you do so once a day, during the early morning hours, when the computer is the least busy with other things. When you arrive at the station in the morning, you will be greeted by a "Backups Completed" message indicating the process was launched as planned. Note that the "Backups Completed" message appears at the end of the backup process even if no files were actually copied, so it is up to you to assure your drives are properly named and to check the drives to confirm the copying has occurred as expected. After you've done your first backup, we suggest you remove the backup drive unit (see your rack unit instructions for safe removal) and slide in the other one. Remember to use the provided key to disengage the drive prior to removal (turn key to the vertical position), and reengage the next drive after insertion (turn the key to the horizontal position.) Put the first drive in a secure location such as a fireproof box, or some off-site location away from your radio station. TuneBacker™ will continue doing backups each night as usual, using the second drive unit. Then, on a weekly basis, or however often you consider prudent, swap the two drives, taking the safe-storage one out and putting it in the computer, and stowing the one you remove from the computer in safe-storage. That's all there is to it! Just remember that you MUST turn off (power down) the computer before switching drives. It is not safe to swap drives with the computer running. Have a CD ready to play over the air for a minute or two while the swap is in progress. MOUNTING THE BACKUP DRIVE In order to make the entire operating system function at maximum performance, BeOS only displays and makes available drives that have been intentionally "mounted." When TuneBacker™ does its work, it mounts the Backup drive only long enough to do the backup, then unmounts it again. For that reason, if you need to access the contents of the Backup drive, you need to mount it, as follows: Right-click on the desktop background. Move your mouse over the "Mount" option. Left-click on the Backup volume in the displayed list When you're done accessing the backup drive, it is advisable to unmount it by repeating the exact same procedure just described. MAINTENANCE DoBackups does a full and complete backup of your entire internal hard drive each time it runs, copying all files and their BeOS attributes from your internal "boot" drive to your rack-mounted "Backup" drive. Because it does a full backup, it will not clear out old files from your Backup drive, even if you have deleted them from your main "boot" drive. A problem? No! Actually, this approach can be a real lifesaver, because if you later determine you needed the deleted files after all, they're still on your backup unit. From time to time, if the backup drive starts to get too full, just open it, grab all the files and folders in it, drag them all to the trash, then empty the trash, effectively eliminating all the drive's contents. It'll all get replaced when the overnight backup occurs, and you'll have a complete, fresh backup minus the orphaned files. Just be sure before doing so that you don't actually need them anymore! BOOTING FROM THE BACKUP DRIVE There are fancy ways to do this, involving the setting up of a boot menu, but let's keep it even simpler. If, due to a problem with your main internal hard drive, you need to boot to the backup drive, just hit the spacebar when the computer is first booting up, just as you see the purple BeOS "splash screen" with the circle symbols appear. Be quick about it! That'll take you into a boot options menu, where you can select a different drive to boot from. Use your keyboard to select the Backup1 drive, and then select "continue booting," and you will boot directly to your backup drive. If your main drive is more seriously damaged, and won't even get as far as the BeOS splash screen, you should seek the assistance of an IT specialist if you aren't one yourself. He or she should try one of the following: Enter your computer's BIOS, and change the default boot hard drive to the IDE address of your Backup drive, then try booting (...or...) Remove the backup drive from its drive drawer, jumper it as standalone master, and mount it internally as the main boot drive on the IDE1 ribbon cable's end connector, in place of the ailing boot drive, then boot the computer. ALWAYS KEEP A BACKUP DRIVE IN THE RACK! On systems with TuneBacker™ installed, if you attempt to reboot the computer with no Backup drive in the rack, your computer will fail to boot properly because of the way the drives are "jumpered." This is normal behavior and no cause for alarm. Just make certain one of the backup drives is always inserted and engaged with the key (slot in the horizontal position) before booting. Table of Contents