BACKINFO and RESTINFO


The Complete Hard Disk Rescue Utility

Version 1.26


1990-1992 (c) Chief Data Recovery LTD.
Program by Nemrod Kedem, Ksoft Development.

P.O.Box 499, Nes-Ziona 70400, ISRAEL.

Phone: +972-8-400070
FAX: +972-8-403295
BBS: 14.4K V32b/V42b +972-3-9667562
BBS: 2400 MNP 5 +972-3-9673913
























SHAREWARE INFORMATION

The BackInfo/RestInfo package is distributed as a shareware package. It
is not a free program nor public domain. BackInfo / Restinfo requires
registration for individual and commercial use. If you have found the
package helpful and you created a BackInfo rescue diskette for use in
the future - you mast register it. Please refer to the registration
form at the end of this document.




BackInfo / RestInfo Page 1


Introduction

The Back/RestInfo package was designed to help in recovering crashed
hard disks and return them to use in the easiest way. The package
contain three utilities, which two of them are the actual working
programs and one is a warning module designed to run in the system
boot time.

The basic idea behind the BRInfo package is to create a bootable
system rescue diskette and to save all information needed to recover
from a disk crash. This method is mush safer then running disk fix
utilities to recover it after the crash. The information on the
Rescue diskette is actualy the real information from the hard disk
and no utility can tell what was this information before the crash.

The BackInfo program will create a master system rescue diskette
(BackInfo Diskette) with all the needed information to recover the
hard disk crash.

The RestInfo program will attempt to recover the system with the
information recorded on the rescue diskette.

The VirBoot program will check the hard disk partition table and boot
record for any infection of viruses.

Creating the master system rescue diskette


To create the master system rescue diskette you must follow these
steps:

1. Format a new system diskette in drive A: by commanding
"FORMAT A: /S" at the DOS prompt. If using DOS version 5.0 or
higher, add /U to the FORMAT commad line to perform an
Unconditional format of the diskette.
Do not use any Quick format utilities such as PC-Format from
PC-Tools or Safe-Format from the Norton Utilities.

2. Make sure that your PATH statement is correctly set and points to
the DOS directory where it can find important files such as
SYS.COM and FDISK.COM.

3. Place both BackInfo and RestInfo in the same directory and run
"BACKINFO" from the DOS prompt.
The program will then write all needed information to the rescue
diskette.

4. Boot from your Rescue diskette to check if all information is
recorded correctly. Do not let RestInfo run in it's AutoPilot mode
in this first run. If RestInfo reports any errors, do not use the
rescue diskette and Connect the author to report about this so it
will be fixed in the next version.


5. Place a write protect tab on the rescue diskette and put it in a
safe place.


BackInfo / RestInfo Page 2


The BackInfo rescue diskette should be re-created every time you
change your system configuration or after the following events:

1. Installation of a new hardware.
2. Low level format of the hard disk.
3. New DOS version installation.
4. Changes in the AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS.
5. Change in system paths.
6. Any other case of changing the boot process.

The information on the BackInfo rescue diskette contains the
following information:

1. CMOS information (AT only).
2. Partition table.
3. Track 0 of the hard disk.
4. Boot record.
5. System files and command processor.
6. Startup files (AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS).
7. Device drivers listed in the config.sys file.
8. System configuration text file.
9. RestInfo program.
10. A new AUTOEXEC.BAT file to run RestInfo.

This information may be manually restored, but only by a trained
person. However, the RestInfo program should restore all this
information correctly.

Restoring information after a system crash

In case of a system crash or a hard disk boot failure, you should
poll the master rescue diskette from it's safe place and follow these
steps:

1. Make sore that your PC can boot from drive A.
If it's an AT computer, make sure that the CMOS configuration is
correct for drive A.

2. Place the master rescue diskette in drive A: and boot your PC. The
RestInfo program will automatically start in the AUTOPILOT mode.
You'll be prompted if you like to continue in this mode. If you
don't know nothing about recovering a crashed hard disk, just let
restinfo do it's work and answer all questions with 'Y'.

RestInfo will recover the system step-by-step and will boot the
system after each step of recovering data.

RestInfo will always prompt for Y/N if a disk write operation is
about to accrue. It will never do anything without noting you first.

After RestInfo will complete it's operation, it is most likely that
your hard disk is back to it's normal state.





BackInfo / RestInfo Page 3


After RestInfo

After RestInfo completed it's operation and restored the hard disk
data, it is your responsibility to check the system to validate it.
Compare the information in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to the
one recorded on your BackInfo rescue diskette.
Check important device drives like DMDRVR.BIN and copy them from the
BackInfo rescue diskette, if necessary.

When NOT to use RestInfo?

The Rescue diskette may be used only on case your PC does not boot
from the hard disk as it did before, or in case of a CMOS battery
failure. In any case of errors such as these reported by CHKDSK or
other disk checkup utilities, you should not use the Rescue diskette
and consult a professional trained person of what to do.

Warnings and Notes

The BackInfo system rescue diskette should only be used on the
system it was created on. Never use a BackInfo rescue diskette on
other systems.

If problems accrued during the creation of the BackInfo rescue
diskette you should never try to restore from it.

If BackInfo reports of files that were not copied to the rescue
diskette do it manually. If there is not enough free space in the
rescue diskette, copy them to a second diskette and keep it with
the backInfo rescue diskette.

RestInfo is able to successfully restore a disk in about 95% of the
cases. However - almost 100% of cases may be manually recovered by
the information in the master rescue diskette.

On rare occasions RestInfo may not safely restore the information
to the hard disk. In these occasions, it is in you're judgement to
decide if to use RestInfo to recover the hard disk.

The VirBoot Program

The VirBoot program is a boot time module of BRinfo. It is designed
to run in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and to detect any partition or boot
sector viruses that may infect your drive.
By default, VirBoot checks both partition and boot sector of your C:
drive. However, you may specify a drive letter on the command line
and VirBoot will check it's boot record. In any case, the partition
table of your first drive will be checked.

For example, running VIRBOOT with no parameters will check the
partition table of your first hard drive and the boot sector of drive
C:. Running VIRBOOT A: will check the partition table of your first
hard drive and the boot sector of the diskette in drive A:.

VirBoot is able to detect a total of 59 partition and boot viruses
along with their variants.

BackInfo / RestInfo Page 4


Here is a list of all viruses that VirBoot detects:

1253 Virus Aircop Virus
Alberta/Stoned Virus Anthrax Virus
Ashar Virus Ashar Virus
Azusa Virus Blood2 Virus
Boot record zapped by XA1 Brain Virus
Brunswick Virus Den Zuk Virus
Disk Killer (OGRE) Virus EDV Virus
Empire 2 Virus Empire virus
Empire-B Virus Evil Empire-C virus
FILLER Virus Falling Letters Virus
Flip BOOT Virus Form Virus
Ghostballs Virus Golden Gate Virus version C
Golden Gate Virus version C2 Invader Related Virus
Joshi Virus Keydrop Virus
LDV Virus Lao Doungo Virus
Liberty-Boot Virus Mardi Bros Virus
MichelAngelo Virus MicroDot Virus
Nichols Virus NoInt virus
Ohio Virus Pentagon Virus
PingPong Virus PingPong/286 Virus
PtrSc Virus Shoe Virus
Smiley Worm Virus Stoned Related Virus
Swedish Stoned Virus Telephonica Virus
Telephonica Virus Tequila Virus (Part.Table)
Twelve Tricks Trojan Typo Boot Virus
V-1 Related Virus Yale Virus
Zapper Virus

The safe solution

If you want to play safe and don't want to get into the statistics of
RestInfo failures, you should consult a professional about recovering
your disk.

There are some companies that actually does data recovery and can
recover your disk information easily by using the BackInfo rescue
diskette.

In USA you may consult any data recovery service available in your
area, and in Israel you may consult Chief Data Recovery Company.

Registration

To register Back/RestInfo you should fill the registration form at
the end of this document and send it with a 25$ check or money order
to:

Chief Data Recovery LTD.
P.O.Box 499
Nes-Ziona 70400
ISRAEL

When we'll receive your registration, we'll sent you the latest
version of Back/RestInfo.

Back/RestInfo Registration for Individual and Site use


Name:_______________________________________________ Date:____________

Company:______________________________________________________________

Address:______________________________________________________________

Phone(s):______________________________ _____________________________

Computer type:________________________________________________________

Hard disk(s) type:____________________________________________________

DOS Version:__________________________________________________________

Please mark one option: __ I never had a disk crash
__ I had a crash and recovered in myself.
__ I had a crash and used a pro to recover it.
__ I had a crash and couldn't recover it.
BackInfo/RestInfo Registration includes one diskette with programs and
documentation and one time free upgrade.

1 Copy (Individual Home Use) $25 x ________ = $___________

2-10 Copies $20 x ________ = $___________

11-20 Copies $18 x ________ = $___________

21-50 Copies $16 x ________ = $___________

51-100 Copies $14 x ________ = $___________

101-200 Copies $12 x ________ = $___________

201-500 Copies $10 x ________ = $___________

501 Copies or more $ 9 x ________ = $___________

Additional program on disk $ 7 x ________ = $___________

Add $8 for S/H outside Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $___________

T O T A L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $___________

Payment by (Please mark one):

____ Check/Money Order No. ______________________
( Please make checks payable to Chief Data Recovery LTD. )

____ Charge my credit card: ___ VISA / ___ MC

Card Number___________________________________________________________

Name on Card__________________________________________________________

Exp. Date_____________________________________________________________

Signature_(Must)______________________________________________________

Diskette format requested is ___ 5 1/4" ___ 3 1/2"

-= EOF =-