# TCD748000 Premiere Backup Failed - MFSTools 3.2



## mdkrough (Oct 25, 2009)

I'm trying to create a backup of my Premiere hard drive, but I'm getting an error message saying file or directory does not exist.

My source drive is /dev/sdb

I'm using the command;
mfstool backup -o /mnt/dos/TCD748000.bak /dev/sdb

Backup starts and I can see the status update as the backup progresses. All seems OK until the file size counter hits 2047. That's when I get the error saying backup failed and the file or directory doesn't exist. When I check my backup folder, I see that the file (TCD748000.bak) was created, but it's only a partial backup.

I also tried this using an old Series 3 drive as the source. Same result.
Anyone have suggestions?
Assistance is humbly requested.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Given where it's failing, I'm guessing that "/mnt/dos" is a flash drive formatted with a FAT16 file system, and it needs more space for the backup than the file system supports.

Backing up a factory 748 drive with recordings could take a file system that supports at least 1TB files. Even FAT32 only supports 4GB files.

What's the end goal? Are you trying to copy the drive to a new one, get a backup of the OS and settings, or something else?


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## mdkrough (Oct 25, 2009)

Thanks for the quick reply.

I started with 2 goals.
1st - Upgrade my Premiere to a 4TB drive. Used MFSCOPY - Worked great.
2nd - Create a backup image I can go back to JIC somethings happens to my 4TB drive days/weeks/months from now. That's where I hit this obstacle.

I've tried a few different things for /mnt/dos
I'm booting and running mfstools from a CD
Started with a 160GB drive with the entire drive set as partition 1
Then tried a 1TB with with a 500GB partition 1
Then tried the 1TB drive with the entire drive set as partition 1
I've tried 2 different file systems - ext2 & ext4
Always the same result. Backup failed at 2047 MiB (of 5470 MiB)

All this was done with the source on SATA Port 2 and the destination on SATA Port 3.

Since my 1st post, I've tried a different computer. I connected the drives through USB. Same result.

The file size shouldn't be very big. I have a freshly CD&E'd drive. If I understand the status info, I'm thinking the backup size should be around 5.4GB. I may be reading that wrong though. But I'm thinking it should fit easily on any of the partitions I've used.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I don't know MFSTools 3.2 very well, but it's still based on the original MFSTools. Given the command that you used and the fact that it's a 4TB drive, I would expect the backup file to take up 4TB.

I think you need to pipe the output from "mfstool backup" through something like gzip or tar before writing it to the final backup file, but I'm no Linux expert.

Hopefully one will come along.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Maybe try mfstool backup -6so /mnt/dos/TCD748000.bak /dev/sdb


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

I am not a Linux expert either. Can you copy files to the drive via the OS commands?


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## mdkrough (Oct 25, 2009)

Thanks. Gave the compression setting a try. That allowed the backup to progress further (to 4481MiB instead of 2047MiB), but still failed with the same message.

Interestingly, I checked the backup file and found that it's size was exactly the same as the files I created without compression - exactly 2147483647 bytes. So it looks like the backup fails when the .bak file bumps up against a 2GB boundary.

I'm not sure how to get around that. Any suggestions?

As far as using OS commands to copy files, that shouldn't be a problem.
What do you have in mind?


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## mdkrough (Oct 25, 2009)

Forgot to include;

-Tried using the -s switch. Didn't have any affect.
-Tried changing compression to -9. Still the same failure.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I would try formatting the backup drive with NTFS and see if you can mount it. Most Linux builds support it these days.

If that doesn't work, try FAT32 with a large block size like 64KB. It sounds like you're definitely hitting a 2GB wall even with compression, so the file system on the backup drive will have to support single files larger than that.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Can you copy a greater than 2GB file to that drive via the OS? 

If you can then it is probably a problem with MFSTools. If not then probably something dealing with the file system like ggieseke suggests.


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## mdkrough (Oct 25, 2009)

I tried different file systems
FAT16 (64k blocks) - Same file size limitation
FAT32 (32k blocks) - Same file size limitation

NTFS won't mount - 'Unrecognized file system'

Possibly the answer is to reduce the size of the source that is being backed up. I can use the -d switch so that /db doesn't get included in the backup. The -d switch in Restore recreates the /db folder, but it asks for a size to be specified. I'm not sure what that size should be. Can anyone offer some guidance? Thanks.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Try this command. mfstool backup -6so - /dev/sdb ¦ /mnt/dos/TCD748000.bak. This will output the backup data to the console and then pipe it to the file.

What about using a larger block size for FAT32.


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## mdkrough (Oct 25, 2009)

Thank you for for your willingness to help with this.
You are greatly appreciated.

Tried these 2 suggestions.
-FAT32 (64k blocks) - Same file size limitation
-Tried the pipe command - Generated error '/mnt/dos/TCD748000.bak - No such file or directory. I'm not Linux smart enough to be able to trouble shoot the command arrangement.

I was able to get the .bak file under 2Gb by using the -d & -v switches. I used 'mfstool backup -6dvo /mnt/dos/tcd748.bak /dev/sdb'
-d reduced the uncompressed file size by 2972Mb
-v reduced the uncompressed file size by 512Mb
This got the uncompressed file size down to 1618Mb and the compressed .bak file down to around 1.3Gb.

To restore I used 'mfstool restore -d2972 -v512 -i /dev/sdb /mnt/dos/tcd748.bak'. Restored OK. Right mfs volume size. Right number of hours reported by TiVo's System Information (640HD). I've been running the restored drive for 24+ hours. 

What do you think? Does this sound right?


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## coredump4 (Aug 8, 2009)

mdkrough said:


> Thank you for for your willingness to help with this.
> You are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Tried these 2 suggestions.
> ...


Sounds right to me. I've done something similar with no issue.

Wish I'd been paying attention, I could've chimed in sooner that MFStools 3.2 won't write a backup file bigger than 2GB, as you figured out. Glad you worked it out though.


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