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03.29.2007 at 01:10AM PDT, ID: 22479665
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How do I automate the construction of DVD images for archival of data files?

Asked by RQuadling in Backup & Restore Software, Microsoft Windows Operating Systems, Algorithms

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I have a small PHP script which gathers data from various sources on our network - Faxes sent/received, scans from ultrasonic systems, archived PDF files, etc.

The "gathering" scripts run 24 hours a day. All files are renamed to include a datetime stamp and are organized into folders like

\Archive\xxxx\YYYY\MM\DD\YYYY-MM-DD__HH-MM-SS__yyyyy.zzz,

where

xxxx is the type of archive (Faxes Sent, Faxes Received, Ultrasonic Scans, etc).
yyyy is the original file name (some of the systems make random names and as the file is moved to the archive, the name is "available" again, hence the renaming procedure during the archiving process).
zzz is the original file type.

What I would like to do is to be able to examine each of the xxxx folders and build an DVD5 image so that it can be burnt to a DVD. For each xxxx folder, the complete day must fit onto the DVD. If day 25 is too big, then day 25 is not included and upto day 24 is. As each image is created, a log file is also created. The log files is be numbered for each disk for that xxxx folder. All the log files need to be included on the DVD (and thats the killer as we don't know what goes onto the DVD until after the DVD image is prepared).

As each image is created, the original files can be removed.

The image will be saved as

\Archive\Images\xxxx_001.img
\Archive\Images\xxxx_002.img
etc.



I am looking for command line controlled utils for windows (GUI is OK as long as the command line parameters have 100% UNATTENDED operation).

I'm currently doing this by hand each month and need to produce around 5 DVDs x 2 copies.

As the files are not compressed (they need to be accessible just like data files on any DVD), the creation of an DVD image shouldn't be that difficult without complicated - I could use PHP for this as there is no need for a high speed, interactive "experience" for this - just a scheduled task running once or twice a month to same me a couple of hours. I know that I will have over 20 different source of information which needs archiving in this fashion. I just want to shove a blank DVD into the machine when it sticks out the drinks holder.

Labelling will be done by hand - I think I can manage that bit easily enough.

So. A fairly big question. I've sent an email to Nero (as that is what I'm currently using), but I've not had a response yet.

Oh. I'm on Windows XP SP2, so no *ix tools. I don't have a C compiler, but I can convert simple C to PHP easily enough (I'm expecting nothing more than simple file i/o handling - no compression, complex data analysis, cryptography, etc., just read this file, update that structure, maybe a checksum calc, add file data to image, next file, sort of thing - not rocket science).

Any suggestions, etc would be greatly appreciated.

TIA.

Richard Quadling.Start Free Trial
[+][-]03.29.2007 at 02:37AM PDT, ID: 18814640

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Zones: Backup & Restore Software, Microsoft Windows Operating Systems, Algorithms
Tags: dvd
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Solution Provided By: _iskywalker_
Participating Experts: 1
Solution Grade: A
 
 
[+][-]03.29.2007 at 05:11AM PDT, ID: 18815237

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[+][-]03.29.2007 at 07:39AM PDT, ID: 18816490

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[+][-]05.04.2007 at 03:33AM PDT, ID: 19029849

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