milton@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Milton Cha) (12/11/90)
i just received my minix 1.5 and want to backup the disks. does anyone know what to use to backup the disk if they are not ms-dos compatible? also, are they 720 or 1.44? also later i want to install minix on an ibm 55sx and a northgate 486? has anyone already done this and have comments. would appreciate the help. Milton @uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
epames@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon) (12/11/90)
In article <10593@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> Milton Cha writes: >i just received my minix 1.5 and want to backup the >disks. does anyone know what to use to backup the >disk if they are not ms-dos compatible? also, are When I got my copy of minix I had the same problem and the way I got around it was to read the diskette into a file and then write it out to another diskette. It took about an hour to write in Turbo Pascal. Avoid the MS-DOS interface and go straight to the bios and its all a piece of cake. If I remember correctly the stack pointer is destroyed so you have to save and restore it. Hope that this is of some use. Regards Michael Salmon
umbaugh@evax.arl.utexas.edu (David Umbaugh) (12/12/90)
>>>>> On 11 Dec 90 11:56:31 GMT, epames@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon) said: >> In article <10593@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> Milton Cha writes: >i just received my minix 1.5 and want to backup the >disks. does anyone know what to use to backup the >disk if they are not ms-dos compatible? also, are >> When I got my copy of minix I had the same problem and the way >> I got around it was to read the diskette into a file and then >> write it out to another diskette. It took about an hour to write >> in Turbo Pascal. Avoid the MS-DOS interface and go straight to >> the bios and its all a piece of cake. If I remember correctly the >> stack pointer is destroyed so you have to save and restore it. >> Hope that this is of some use. I have always had good success with: DISKCOPY A: B: or if you have only one floppy drive, DISKCOPY A: A: >> Regards >> Michael Salmon Hope it works for you. Seems to work better if the destination diskette is already formatted. -- L. David (Dave) Umbaugh <umbaugh@evax.utarl.edu> Computer Science Engineering University of Texas at Arlington <B652LDU@UTARLG> BITNET PO Box 19015 Arlington, TX 76012 (817) 273-3628 417 N. Cooper Street, Room 300
bwilson@mvax.sonoma.edu (Brian Wilson) (12/12/90)
The disks we got were not formatted on all 80 tracks, therefore the standard ms-dos diskcopy would not work. Also, the boot block on the boot disks makes it uncopyable with diskcopy. However, if you have a 2 drive system and you boot Minix you can copy entire disks with cp /dev/fd0 /dev/fd1 I got error messages when Minix read the last formatted track on the source disks, but the copies are still usable. Uh, yeah, you still have to format the destination disk with MS-DOS. Brian.Wilson@Sonoma.EDU
cechew@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Earl Chew) (12/12/90)
In <38822@nigel.ee.udel.edu> bwilson@mvax.sonoma.edu (Brian Wilson) writes: >Uh, yeah, you still have to format the destination disk with MS-DOS. No you don't. If you're running 1.5(.10) you can use Bruce Evans' format program (available from the usual archive sites). Earl -- Earl Chew, Dept of Computer Science, Monash University, Australia 3168 EMAIL: cechew@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au PHONE: 03 5655447 FAX: 03 5655146 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer) (12/13/90)
In <UMBAUGH.90Dec11114951@evax.arl.utexas.edu> umbaugh@evax.arl.utexas.edu (David Umbaugh) writes: >>>>>> On 11 Dec 90 11:56:31 GMT, epames@eos.ericsson.se (Michael Salmon) said: >>> In article <10593@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> Milton Cha writes: >>i just received my minix 1.5 and want to backup the >>disks. does anyone know what to use to backup the >>disk if they are not ms-dos compatible? also, are >I have always had good success with: >DISKCOPY A: B: > or if you have only one floppy drive, >DISKCOPY A: A: This works great if you are using DOS 2.x or earlier. Later DOS versions want to read the first sector of the disk to determine what the diskette's layout is, so they abort when they see MINIX stuff. -- Guy Helmer helmer@sdnet.bitnet, uunet!dsuvax!ghelmer work: DSU Computing Services, Business & Education Institute (605) 256-5315 play: MidIX System Support Services (605) 256-2788 postnews: message content ambiguous; spurious information added as required
rcbatg@rwc.urc.tue.nl (Tonnie Geraets) (12/13/90)
ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer) writes: >In <UMBAUGH.90Dec11114951@evax.arl.utexas.edu> umbaugh@evax.arl.utexas.edu (David Umbaugh) writes: >>I have always had good success with: >>DISKCOPY A: B: >> or if you have only one floppy drive, >>DISKCOPY A: A: >This works great if you are using DOS 2.x or earlier. Later DOS versions >want to read the first sector of the disk to determine what the diskette's >layout is, so they abort when they see MINIX stuff. I use PC-dos 3.30 and never had any problems copying non-dos disks with diskcopy. I believe that is a problem with MS-dos only. Tonnie Geraets, Internet: rcbatg@urc.tue.nl Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, NL Bitner: rcgbbatg@heitue51.bitnet ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Mam, wat vroeger God deed doet nu de computer, he?" - Robbie Bergmans (7) ("Mom, what God used to do, is now done by a computer, isn't it?") -- Tonnie Geraets, Internet: rcbatg@urc.tue.nl Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, NL Bitner: rcgbbatg@heitue51.bitnet ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
gchamby@cs-col.Columbia.NCR.COM (Greg Chamby) (12/14/90)
Brian Wilson writes: >The disks we got were not formatted on all 80 tracks, therefore the >standard ms-dos diskcopy would not work. Also, the boot block on the boot >disks makes it uncopyable with diskcopy. I've seen others complaining of being unable to diskcopy the Minix disks. I've never had a problem doing DISKCOPY A: A: under PCDOS 3.30 on serveral machines. I copied all the 1.2 and 1.3 distributions this way. Although I assume the disks I received were formatted on all tracks since DISKCOPY read all of them fine. Just curious as to what problems others have had in this regard. gchamby%cs-col
cur022%cluster@ukc.ac.uk (Bob Eager) (12/14/90)
In article <1990Dec12.185024.21646@dsuvax.uucp>, ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer) writes: >>DISKCOPY A: A: > > This works great if you are using DOS 2.x or earlier. Later DOS versions > want to read the first sector of the disk to determine what the diskette's > layout is, so they abort when they see MINIX stuff. You might be interested to know that DOS 3.3 DISKCOPY works OK; but *only* if it is PC-DOS! Unusual to find IBM being less stringent than MS! Anyway, if you have PC-DOS then DISKCOPY should work... -------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Bob Eager | University of Kent at Canterbury | +44 227 764000 ext 7589 -------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
eesrajm@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Andrew J Michael) (12/15/90)
In article <1990Dec14.014834.14640@cs-col.Columbia.NCR.COM>, gchamby@cs-col.Columbia.NCR.COM (Greg Chamby) writes: > > Brian Wilson writes: > > >The disks we got were not formatted on all 80 tracks, therefore the > >standard ms-dos diskcopy would not work. Also, the boot block on the boot > >disks makes it uncopyable with diskcopy. The MINIX Centre has recently seen several MINIX-PC 1.5s from P-H where some of the disks aren't formatted at all !! Completely blank. This seems to only afflict the 3.5" disks, not 5.25". -- Andy Michael (eesrajm@cc.brunel.ac.uk) " Emulation is the sincerest 85 Hawthorne Crescent form of pottery." West Drayton Middlesex - William Frend De Morgan UB7 9PA
davep@gapos.bt.co.uk (Dave Parkinson) (12/18/90)
I also had the problem of how to backup the Minix disks. I had the PH 1.5 distribution on 3.5" floppies. Left to its own devices diskcopy on my Zenith assumed that the disks were only 40 tracks apiece. (This was the side effect of the non-MSDOS format it found when looking at the disks). I ended up writing a fairly crude program that used the INT13 interface to read the originals and write out a copy. - A side effect I had was that I had to do a 'dir' on a standard DOS 720k disk before running my program. I assume that this was to do with the auto density/type detection code in the standard BIOS drivers. I imagine the differing replies here depend on whether people were copying 360k disks in 360k drives, 360k disks in 1.2M drives, 720k disks in 720k drives, or 720k disks in 1.4M drives! David Parkinson davep@gapos.bt.co.uk
brougham@ucs.sfu.ca (Chris Brougham) (12/19/90)
AST Dos 3.3 Diskcopy works fine.
--
cb... chris brougham
work: brougham@whistler.sfu.ca
home: brog@sloth.bc.ca