The Difference Between HDBKUP.EXE and BACKUP.EXE (72739)

SUMMARY

The Microsoft MS-DOS 5 Upgrade Disk 1 contains a program called HDBKUP.EXE. This utility was designed for backing up hard drives prior to installing the Microsoft MS-DOS 5 Upgrade. Backing up a hard drive is one of the first options presented when running the MS-DOS 5 Upgrade program. HDBKUP.EXE is not copied to the DOS directory on the hard drive during installation.

MORE INFORMATION

HDBKUP.EXE is not a compressed file and can be copied to the hard drive and run independently of the MS-DOS version 5.0 installation. HDRSTORE.EXE is not a compressed file and can also be copied to the hard drive. HDBKUP will only do full backups of hard disks and can be run under MS-DOS versions 2.11 and later. Backing up from floppy disks and/or RAM drives is not an option under HDBKUP. Backups made with HDBKUP can be restored with RESTORE or HDRSTORE. Backups made with BACKUP.EXE can be restored with HDRSTORE.EXE. HDRSTORE.EXE is located on the Microsoft MS-DOS 5 Upgrade Disk 2 (720K disk size) or Disk 3 (360K disk size).

HDBKUP.EXE can format a disk during the backup process, even if FORMAT.COM is not in the path. HDBKUP can also format different density disks during backup. The standard BACKUP.EXE cannot do either of these.

The following are the two backup utilities included with MS-DOS 5.0:

   HDBKUP   EXE     42698 04-09-91   5:00a
   BACKUP   EXE     36092 04-09-91   5:00a