pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (05/19/89)
I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both
wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use
DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable,
or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ???
Thanks 1e6,
Pete
--
Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690
{backbone}!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjhbruce@mdi386.UUCP (Bruce A. McIntyre) (05/20/89)
In article <752@mccc.UUCP>, pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use > DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, > or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ??? > Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690 > {backbone}!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjh The SCO version is built on disks that are similar in format to DOS disks. The first 1 (or two, depending on which disk size) are filesystems, the rest are tar archives. If you read the manual, on of the first tasks it recommends is to BACKUP UP the distribution disks. Since SCO uses a Serialno protection there is no other backup protection involved. You CAN use diskcopy to copy ALL of the SCO distribution disks. bruce -- ========================================================================= Bruce A. McIntyre, McIntyre Designs, Inc. VOICE(215)322-1895 143 Bridgetown Pike, Langhorne, Pa. 19047 DATA (215)357-2915 {wells|lgnp1|prapc2}!mdi386!bruce bruce@wells tbit+ Unix, Xenix, Netware and PC-DOS Applications development. Specializing in Database Applications since 1980.
chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) (05/21/89)
In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both >wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use >DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, >or are the files tar/cpio archives? There is no such thing as a "unix-formatted" disk. You have to realize that there are two levels of formatting for magnetic media: physical formatting and logical formatting. Physical formatting is where, in the case of disks, you lay down the sector/track info. It is mainly a function of hardware[1]. The logical formatting is a function of what you are doing with the disk. Cpio archive? DOS filesystem? etc. When you do a "format", whether it be under DOS, XENIX, Microport or whatever, you are putting down the physical format. The DOS FORMAT command then goes on to put other goo on the disk, like boot and fat blocks[2]. Under unix, this is broken out in a seperate step called "mkfs". If you've got a utility which just copies the raw data on the disk, then it matters not what the logical format is, just that the physical format be understood. Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY. Under unix, there's dd. In the case of XENIX 386 on 96tpi floppies, the N1 floppy is a mountable filesystem. The rest are tar archives. But they are all boil down to 15 sector 79 track disks with goo on them. (As do DOS format DSHD floppies.) DISKCOPY or dd will work just fine. [1] Of course it is possible to do strange things, like throw on a track with am unusual number of sectors. This is the basis of some DOS copy protection schemes. [2] On hard disks, the DOS FORMAT command *only* puts down the goo. The so called low-level format lays down the physical formatting. -- Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337
daveh@marob.MASA.COM (Dave Hammond) (05/21/89)
In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both >wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use >DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, >or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ??? The easiest thing to do is use dd: Floppy 0 to floppy 1: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/fd1 Or, floppy 0 to HD to floppy 0: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/tmp/disk_image dd if=/tmp/disk_image of=/dev/fd0 -- Dave Hammond daveh@marob.masa.com
plocher%sally@Sun.COM (John Plocher) (05/21/89)
In <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US> Chip Rosenthal writes: >If you've got a utility which just copies the raw data on the disk, then >it matters not what the logical format is, just that the physical format >be understood. Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY. Under unix, there's dd. Under DOS 3.3 (and 4.0?) the DISKCOPY program seems to only copy DOS formatted disks. If the boot record isn't a DOS generated one, the copy will not be correct. The Microport distribution boot disks had to be specially engineered to work around this problem. I didn't do the engineering so I don't really know the specifics of the problem, but disks copied with 3.2 diskcopy worked and with 3.3 diskcopy they didn't. Then we fiddled with the boot sector and they would copy fine. -John Plocher
chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) (05/22/89)
In article <105986@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> plocher@sun.UUCP (John Plocher) writes: >In <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US> Chip Rosenthal writes: >>Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY. >Under DOS 3.3 (and 4.0?) the DISKCOPY program seems to only copy DOS >formatted disks. Right you are. I stand corrected. I did this many moons ago under an old DOS while bootstrapping up the first xenix installation here. Well that's a nice step backwards. But somehow it doesn't surprise me. -- Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337 "I wish you'd put that starvation box down and go to bed" - Albert Collins' Mom
dpi@loft386.UUCP (Doug Ingraham) (05/22/89)
In article <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US>, chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) writes: > > If you've got a utility which just copies the raw data on the disk, then > it matters not what the logical format is, just that the physical format > be understood. Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY. Under unix, there's dd. > Older versions of DOS will allow you to copy non-DOS diskettes, but not DOS 3.30. It gives the unfortunate message Non DOS Diskette. Its this kind of stupidity that makes UN*X and variants attractive to me. Under UN*X data is data. I don't know exactly when Microsoft (or IBM) broke this valuable feature. Or did they consider it a bug? I copy diskettes using dd with a command like (for 1.2 meg): Insert source diskette in drive. dd if=/dev/rfd0 of=disk1 bs=30k Put preformatted destination diskette in drive. dd if=disk1 of=/dev/rfd0 bs=30k remove destination diskette. If you want to verify the diskette read it back in under a different name. then use cmp to compare the files. I link /dev/rfd0 to the appropriate real device. This is not as fast as it would be under DOS because the UN*X vendors don't seem to care how fast the floppy driver operates. > -- > Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337 -- Doug Ingraham dpi@loft386.UUCP bigtex!loft386!dpi
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (05/22/89)
In article <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US> chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) writes: =In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: =>... or are they *NIX-formatted disks? = =There is no such thing as a "unix-formatted" disk. Then why does *NIX have a command called "format" (or whatever)? =You have to realize that there are two levels of formatting for magnetic =media: physical formatting and logical formatting. I do, I do! =When you do a "format", whether it be under DOS, XENIX, Microport or =whatever, you are putting down the physical format. The DOS FORMAT command =then goes on to put other goo on the disk, like boot and fat blocks[2]. =Under unix, this is broken out in a seperate step called "mkfs". Oh, so there is no such thing as a *nix-formatted disk -- there are (at least) three kinds of *nix-formatted disk, right? =If you've got a utility which just copies the raw data on the disk, then =it matters not what the logical format is, just that the physical format =be understood. Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY. Under unix, there's dd. So then, DISKCOPY only cares that the source floppy and destination floppy both have 80 tracks laid out at 96 tracks per inch, and that the recording density is "high", with 15 sectors per track, right? I also have some floppies marked "96 tpi, 80 tracks, single sided, double density" and others marked "single sided quad density". Where do they fit into the spectrum of PC-type diskettes? (Incidentally, I tried mailing to you several times but it always bounced.) Thanks for the help. Pete -- Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690 {backbone}!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjh
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (05/22/89)
In article <105986@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> plocher@sun.UUCP (John Plocher) writes:
=Under DOS 3.3 (and 4.0?) the DISKCOPY program seems to only copy DOS
=formatted disks. If the boot record isn't a DOS generated one, the
=copy will not be correct. The Microport distribution boot disks had to
=be specially engineered to work around this problem.
=
=I didn't do the engineering so I don't really know the specifics of the
=problem, but disks copied with 3.2 diskcopy worked and with 3.3 diskcopy
=they didn't. Then we fiddled with the boot sector and they would copy
=fine.
John,
Is it possible to look at the copies (or originals, for that matter) with
Norton Utilities Advanced (in maintenance mode)? Is that a reasonable
test of succesful copying? Thanks,
Pete
--
Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690
{backbone}!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjhmarkz@ssc.UUCP (Mark Zenier) (05/23/89)
In article <247@vector.Dallas.TX.US>, chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) writes: > In article <105986@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> plocher@sun.UUCP (John Plocher) writes: > >In <241@vector.Dallas.TX.US> Chip Rosenthal writes: > >>Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY. > >Under DOS 3.3 (and 4.0?) the DISKCOPY program seems to only copy DOS > >formatted disks. Actually the problem starts with Dos 3.2, but the 3.1 diskcopy program doesn't seem to care what Dos version it runs under. Mark Zenier uunet!nwnexus!pilchuck!ssc!markz markz@ssc.uucp uunet!amc! uw-beaver!tikal!
john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) (05/23/89)
In article <478@loft386.UUCP> dpi@loft386.UUCP (Doug Ingraham) writes: >Older versions of DOS will allow you to copy non-DOS diskettes, but not DOS >3.30. It gives the unfortunate message Non DOS Diskette. Its this kind of I "diskcopy" 286 and 386 Unix diskettes all the time with no problems under PC-DOS 3.3. Even Unix boot diskettes copy fine. Perhaps MS-DOS has the problem to which you refer, but not PC-DOS? >This is not as fast as it would be under DOS because the UN*X vendors >don't seem to care how fast the floppy driver operates. How true. Can someone tell us why the System V/386 floppy drivers are so slow? Performance of the /dev/dsk/f* devices is abominable, and the /dev/rdsk/f* devices are only marginally better. The floppy drivers on my Venix/286 are very fast -- I'd say they're even faster than DOS. So obviously it *can* be done right. -- John Temples - UUCP: {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd}!peora!rtmvax!bilver!jwt!john
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (05/23/89)
In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both >wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use >DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, >or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ??? This comes up often enough to warrant a post.... Format the destination diskette. Assuming a 1.2MB floppy: dd if=/dev/rfd096ds15 of=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Xenix) or dd if=/dev/rdsk/fd096ds15 of=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Microport) This copies the disk to a temporary file. Then, to make a dup, insert a blank formatted disk, and type: dd of=/dev/rfd096ds15 if=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Xenix) or dd of=/dev/rdsk/fd096ds15 if=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Microport) Don't forget to remove the 1.2MB file from /tmp when you're done! This works for both bootable and non-bootable Unix diskettes. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"
plocher%sally@Sun.COM (John Plocher) (05/24/89)
In article <758@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: > Norton Utilities Advanced (in maintenance mode)? Is that a reasonable > test of succesful copying? Thanks, Since Ive never used NU-advanced I don't know. -John Plocher
faulkner@jmullins.harvard.edu (Don Faulkner) (05/24/89)
In article <478@loft386.UUCP> dpi@loft386.UUCP (Doug Ingraham) writes:
...
Doug> dd if=/dev/rfd0 of=disk1 bs=30k
Doug> Put preformatted destination diskette in drive.
Doug> dd if=disk1 of=/dev/rfd0 bs=30k
Doug> remove destination diskette.
...
Doug> This is not as fast as it would be under DOS because the UN*X vendors
Doug> don't seem to care how fast the floppy driver operates.
dd's default block size is 512; might get an order of magnitude
increase in speed by using "bs=100b" or something sane...
--
Don Faulkner
Building 1, Room 803
Harvard University, School of Public Health
665 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
ARPA: faulkner%jmullins@harvard.harvard.edu
BITNET: faulkner@harvard
Telephone: (617) 732-2297pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (05/25/89)
In article <106413@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> plocher@sun.UUCP (John Plocher) writes: =In article <758@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: => Norton Utilities Advanced (in maintenance mode)? Is that a reasonable => test of succesful copying? Thanks, = =Since Ive never used NU-advanced I don't know. = = -John Plocher Oh. Other than just trying an install, is there any MSDOS program that you know of that could verify that the copy was successful? -- Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690 {backbone}!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjh
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (05/25/89)
In article <3501@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: =In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: =>I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both =>wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use =>DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, =>or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ??? = =This comes up often enough to warrant a post.... = [details of using *NIX to copy a floppy deleted] Thanks, Karl. Do you have instructions for doing this from MSDOS? -- Pete Holsberg, Mercer County Community College, Trenton, NJ 08690 {backbone}!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjh
plocher%sally@Sun.COM (John Plocher) (05/26/89)
In article <763@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >Oh. Other than just trying an install, is there any MSDOS program that >you know of that could verify that the copy was successful? Use (pre 3.2) diskcomp or any other disk compare program. If NU advanced has such a feature you can use it. Under Unix I use dd to copy the disks: dd if=/dev/rdsk/0s24 ibs=16k of=/usr/tmp/foo dd of=/dev/rdsk/0s24 obs=16k if=/usr/tmp/foo Then I checksum them and write the checksum on the disk label (for next time): sum -r /dev/rdsk/0s25 Any disks you got from Microport Tech Support should have the checksum written on the label. (Not so with distribution disks) +---------------------------------------+ | checksum | | +-------------+ disk label | | | Microport | | | | logo | | | +-------------+ | | | +---------------------------------------+ -John Plocher
romwa@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Royal Ontario Museum) (05/28/89)
In article <3501@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: >In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >>I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both >>wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use >>DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, >>or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ??? > >This comes up often enough to warrant a post.... > >Format the destination diskette. > >Assuming a 1.2MB floppy: > dd if=/dev/rfd096ds15 of=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Xenix) > or > dd if=/dev/rdsk/fd096ds15 of=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Microport) > >This copies the disk to a temporary file. > >Then, to make a dup, insert a blank formatted disk, and type: > dd of=/dev/rfd096ds15 if=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Xenix) > or > dd of=/dev/rdsk/fd096ds15 if=/tmp/disk bs=15k (Microport) There is a Xenix utility named diskcp that is a bit easier to use--no need to use dd. Diskcp allows multiple copies of the source. I suspect it does the same routine as the above posting--it's just less verbose. I would not bother using MS-DOS utilities either. Mark T. Dornfeld Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queens Park Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 2C6 mark@utgpu!rom - or - romwa@utgpu
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (05/31/89)
In article <764@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >In article <3501@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: >In article <752@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes: >>I have Microport V/386 and a friend has SCO Xenix/386, and we were both >>wondering how to make backups of the distribution floppy disks? Can you use >>DISKCOPY or are they *NIX-formatted disks? If the latter, are they mountable, >=>or are the files tar/cpio archives? Or ??? >=This comes up often enough to warrant a post.... > [details of using *NIX to copy a floppy deleted] >Thanks, Karl. Do you have instructions for doing this from MSDOS? With earlier versions of MSDOS, you use DISKCOPY. Later versions (3.3 for certain, not sure with 3.2) don't work, as the DISKCOPY program looks for a DOS signature, and failing to find it, complains and refuses to copy the disk. There's no physical reason for this; rather a logical problem within the DISKCOPY program. I don't know whether to call this a bug or a feature.... -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"