Restoring a notfred backup

[ThePerfectCore]

I have a backed-up WU from a notfred diskless cruncher here, in my hand, that I have copied to a USB drive. I backed it up a few days ago thinking that it would be easy to copy/paste it back to the notfred cruncher after a quick reboot, but unfortunately, I was wrong. As soon as the cruncher rebooted, it downloaded another WU, so I restarted with -oneunit and just let that one finish.

But this old backed up WU still remains.

I did some research tonight and it seems as though notfred's distro will automatically restore any backups from up to 2 USB drives, so I copied the backed-up WU to a USB disk, stick in into the cruncher, rebooted, and... it downloaded a new WU and started working on that.

This old backed up WU still remains.

The USB drive is detected, I am sure of that. It just doesn't seem to want to restore the old WU. I don't want to risk trying ANOTHER USB drive because then I'll have three extra WUs for one computer and at that point I'm looking at juggling a bunch of -oneunit clients.

I really want to get this one done, as I understand that fast work = more valuable. Is it a big deal if I lose a WU? Doesn't that mean Stanford has to wait ~40 days to continue with that particular project? Isn't there at least one other computer out there, somewhere, that is doing the same work? Lastly, is it possible to restore this unit on a Windows FAH installation?

What good is a backup if I can't use it?

[ThePerfectCore]

After several hours of scouring the TechReport forums, attempting to boot a number of computers from a USB drive, switching USB drives, downloading a third work unit and attempting to match the directory structure, I have given up on trying to fix this problem. The best answer I found was "but it should work, just boot from the CD with the USB drive attached and it'll resume!"

Me: didn't work
Other Guy: but it should work!
Me: WELP

Anyway, I'm stopping before I get buried in WUs I can't process. It seems that diskless folding outside a VM is dangerous business. Shame on notfred for releasing such a poorly implemented "resume" function.

[ihrsetrdr]

Anyway, I'm stopping before I get buried in WUs I can't process. It seems that diskless folding outside a VM is dangerous business. Shame on notfred for releasing such a poorly implemented "resume" function.

To be fair, there shouldn't be any expectations placed on work-in-progress software that's freely shared by those volunteering their time/efforts for the benefit of others.

[ChasR]

Notfreds is a really light distro. Too light in my opinion, but it has the advantage of being almost automatic in its installation and operation. You don't have to know Linux even exists to be able to get notfreds up and running. You sort of "get what you pay for".

I've been going with full Ubuntu 9.10 installs because I like to be able to easily control the OS and folding and like having a browser to download and install updated clients and to be able to move WUs around easily. I have yet to notice any performance penalty, in part because I can choose which kernel to run with ubuntu.

[ThePerfectCore]

To be fair, there shouldn't be any expectations placed on work-in-progress software that's freely shared by those volunteering their time/efforts for the benefit of others.

I really don't think "it's free software so it should not be expected to work 100%" is an excuse. If something is advertised as having an ability (in this case, "backup and restore in-progress work units" then the monetary or otherwise perceived value has little to do with anything.

I've been going with full Ubuntu 9.10 installs because I like to be able to easily control the OS and folding and like having a browser to download and install updated clients and to be able to move WUs around easily. I have yet to notice any performance penalty, in part because I can choose which kernel to run with ubuntu.

This is exactly what I'm doing, I'm already much happier with the installation.

[ihrsetrdr]

I really don't think "it's free software so it should not be expected to work 100%" is an excuse. If something is advertised as having an ability (in this case, "backup and restore in-progress work units" then the monetary or otherwise perceived value has little to do with anything.

No excuse, just a reality. It's not a consumer product, it's in continuous development.

[Giz]

If you've got old work units lying around from a few days ago, won't they be past the 'Deadline' date?

Or if not, be old enough that you won't make the deadline if you run them again?