Help ,
I am not an expert at Linux but I am not new either . And almost everyday I run into something I don't have a clue about . Now it seems I cannot even set a date correctly .

I used Dump once to save a partition /dev/hda7 however I forgot to use u to set the backup time . Now all I want to do is set a date 1 day after the previous backup and backup changed and new files .
I have tried every possible combination of dates and all I get is Bad time after the -T option . I did cat /etc/dumpdates and set the date according to that style - no luck.

I am not able to get you.

are you trying to change the timestamp of that dump file ???

masand, I think anilbh is actually trying to add a line to /etc/dumpdates that represents the dump that was done.
The -u option was simply forgotten, so the /etc/dumpdates file wasn't updated.

anilbh, using a special "ls" command may reveal the ctime of the dump file, as recorded in /etc/dumpdates.
-l displays more info than just the filenames
--time=ctime makes sure that the ctime is shown, not the last modified time
--time-style='+%s' (see also "man date") displays all timestamps (so the ctime) as the number of seconds since epoch (1970-01-01 00:00:00), as requested in /etc/dumpdates.

So, you can always retrieve all the information that needs to go in /etc/dumpdates.
Using -u when dumping just adds another record to /etc/dumpdates. But you can always add additional lines to /etc/dumpdates directly too (you'll probably need root access).

Using the -T option of dump can work too. It's supposed to get a timestamp in the same format as the format of /etc/dumpdates, so you were spot on with that approach.
If you want to use this approach, use the following steps:
-get the ctime of your dump via the "ls" I explained above
-then add (ie in a calculator) 86400 seconds (equivalent of 1 day) to the ctime you got
-then use dump -T calculated_time

Sorry I had more problems - the system crashed...
Yes I had forgotten to use -u did not know it was essential. The I tried to back up using -T here I can try any format and it just does not work . Finally I did add a line in the dump dates file using an editor.

Hi Massand ,
Thank you .
I was looking for the thanks button . What a good idea . But where is it ?

yes i think i need to edit my signature.I haven't done that after the site re-make.

Thanks for reminding me about that.

BTW what idea are u talking about ?

regadrs

The others seem to have understood . I will have to go thru my query again to answer that. Will do...
OKI did a dump without using -u . Now I wanted to do an incremental dump and I wanted to set a Date for the -T option. However I gave all the alternatives for dates and it would not accept . It seems Date and time have to be in the ctime format . Have to find out what that is. It is amazing what a lot of ignorance Windows tolerates . In fact that is the main problem for those who want to 'try out Linux'.

ctime format is nothing abnormal. It's just the number of seconds since "epoch" (a special date in the past, usually 1st Jan 1970, 00:00:00).

See also my post above and the man pages of the "date" command.