1k1mgm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Christopher Gunn) (06/04/91)
My AUX ci (8/80) showed up this week and is causing me a lot of problems,
mostly because of disk-space shortage. I've been reading some of the tips
in this group and THINK I know how to format and re-build a 3rd-party
external drive so that AUX can use it.* My problem right now concerns
how to configure the Mac area on the AUX disk, in order to make the pure
Mac side of the OS (however pure it may be...) usable.**
Advice to RTFM won't help me much, even if it includes pointers to the
right FM, because the FM's haven't shown up yet, except the rudimentary
ones in the 'Accessory Kit.' (Complete set is on order.)
What I've got now:
Apple HD SC Setup shows the internal 80Mb drive partitioned as follows:
Size What
---- ----
16K Mac Driver
16K <empty>
54567K AUX root slice 0
18432K AUX swap slice 1
3072K AUX auto-recovery
>2048K Mac partition
1K Free AUX slice 3 (thanks a lot!)
1K <mandatory buffer>
I need to grow the Mac partition by between 2 and 4Mb, in order to install
enough fonts, etc., to make the thing usable.
Since the Mac partition is 'landlocked,' I'm obviously going to have to
find some space in the swap or recovery partitions. I am assuming
(perhaps incorrectly) that I can copy the contents of the Mac partition
(using the HD SC Setup floppy) to another SCSI disk and restore them
later. Then, presumably, I could remove the swap and recovery partitions
and subsequently restore all three affected partitions (swap, recovery,
Mac) in different (and more appropriate sizes).
Question is, at this point, will AUX be able to wake up? Since I can't
see the swap and recovery partitions from a Mac OS, I can't backup and
restore the contents. (Actually, I can't figure out how to see them
from AUX, either, but presumably there's a way...)
Sorry for burdening the net with what's obviously a neophyte question;
all the FM's are presumably on the way, though, and I really don't
intend to be a chronic nuisance. Thanks for any advice folks can provide.
Christopher Gunn Molecular Graphics and Modeling Lab
SPAN--KUPHSX::GUNN Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Malott Hall
913-864-4428 or -4495 University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045
* It strikes me as uniquely sleazy for Apple to have written software
that won't work with 3rd-party drives.
** Along these lines, is there a good reason why the Mac OS on an AUX
system can't see Mac hard drives? (It can after all see Mac floppies.)
One of the manuals says that AUX can 'mount AUX or Mac file systems.'
Is it the case that a mountable 'Mac file system' must be embedded in
an AUX-structured disk?tony@tui.marcam.dsir.govt.nz (Tony Cooper) (06/05/91)
In article <1991Jun4.112209.31247@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, 1k1mgm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Christopher Gunn) writes: |> external drive so that AUX can use it.* My problem right now concerns |> how to configure the Mac area on the AUX disk, in order to make the pure |> Mac side of the OS (however pure it may be...) usable.** It's pure System 6.0.x. Nothing special about it. Same as everybody else's. It has some A/UX stuff that the hoi poloi do not have (A/UX startup and a bin folder). |> 16K Mac Driver |> 16K <empty> |> 54567K AUX root slice 0 |> 18432K AUX swap slice 1 |> 3072K AUX auto-recovery |> >2048K Mac partition |> 1K Free AUX slice 3 (thanks a lot!) |> 1K <mandatory buffer> |> |> I need to grow the Mac partition by between 2 and 4Mb, in order to install |> enough fonts, etc., to make the thing usable. Forget about making it useable. There's nothing you can do with it anyway. Even if you make it 6MB it's pretty frustrating using a Mac with just 6MB of disk space. Basically the Mac partition contains enough stuff to boot A/UX and that's all. Use your other hard drive(s) for decent sized partitions. |> Question is, at this point, will AUX be able to wake up? Since I can't |> see the swap and recovery partitions from a Mac OS, I can't backup and |> restore the contents. (Actually, I can't figure out how to see them |> from AUX, either, but presumably there's a way...) You can see them from MacOS using SCSI utilities or from A/UX startup using /dev/rdsk/c... special files. |> Sorry for burdening the net with what's obviously a neophyte question; |> all the FM's are presumably on the way, though, and I really don't Man pages are built in on the disk you have now. You might find the following helpful: gd(7), pname(1m), dp(1m), and maybe some others. |> * It strikes me as uniquely sleazy for Apple to have written software |> that won't work with 3rd-party drives. What do you mean by "uniquely"? If Apple are sleazy then they are not the only ones. And in this case Apple are not sleazy at all. The A/UX SCSI disk driver is very generic indeed. It works with most 3rd party disk drives. Do you mean HD SC Setup? Disk formatting software is drive-specific. You can't expect Apple to support all 3rd pary drives out there. Impossible task. Apple supports their own drives which is all they have to do. In fact, when it comes to system software Apple is very generous. So is their support on the net. I don't know anything sleazy about Apple at all. In fact, their generosity is growing all the time - 1991 has been a great year for free software. |> Sorry for burdening the net with what's obviously a neophyte question; It's not the questions, it's the insults that are the burden. |> ** Along these lines, is there a good reason why the Mac OS on an AUX |> system can't see Mac hard drives? (It can after all see Mac floppies.) It can. It's just normal system software. |> One of the manuals says that AUX can 'mount AUX or Mac file systems.' |> Is it the case that a mountable 'Mac file system' must be embedded in |> an AUX-structured disk? No. But if you want to mount a MacOS filesystem that is inside a partition on a disk then A/UX must recognize the partitioning scheme. I presume that this is what you mean. For the third party drive you must have a valid A/UX partitioned drive to mount both types of partition. And so the disk formatting software must create the right partitions. If it doesn't then you might have to buy some other software to do the job. That's easy. Cheers, Tony Cooper
sysmark@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt) (06/05/91)
[ Christopher Gunn ] | * It strikes me as uniquely sleazy for Apple to have written software | that won't work with 3rd-party drives. [ Tony Cooper ] | What do you mean by "uniquely"? If Apple are sleazy then they are not the | only ones. And in this case Apple are not sleazy at all. The A/UX SCSI disk | driver is very generic indeed. It works with most 3rd party disk drives. Do | you mean HD SC Setup? Disk formatting software is drive-specific. You can't | expect Apple to support all 3rd pary drives out there. Impossible task. Apple | supports their own drives which is all they have to do. Granted that *formatting* is (or, at least, can be) very drive-specific. But I don't understand why partitioning can't be supported for all drives. Isn't the partition layout squirreled away in some known place (e.g. block N of the first cylinder, or some such)? Once the drive is formatted, HD SC Setup should be able to determine the drive characteristics (number of heads, sectors/track, and so forth) with standard SCSI commands, following which it could define the partitions, copy appropriate things to the Mac partition, and so on. It's my impression that HD SC Setup sniffs the drive, notices that it isn't an Apple drive, and refuses to deal with it in any way, even though it could, if it wanted to, do things like define the partitions. If I'm wrong, then please correct me. If not, then I'd tend to agree with Mr. Gunn, though perhaps I'd consider "sleazy" a bit strong; how about "shoddy"? Mark Bartelt 416/978-5619 Canadian Institute for mark@cita.toronto.edu Theoretical Astrophysics mark@cita.utoronto.ca
tony@tui.marcam.dsir.govt.nz (Tony Cooper) (06/06/91)
In article <1991Jun5.141103.23420@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>, sysmark@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt) writes: |> Granted that *formatting* is (or, at least, can be) very drive-specific. But |> I don't understand why partitioning can't be supported for all drives. Isn't |> the partition layout squirreled away in some known place (e.g. block N of the |> first cylinder, or some such)? Once the drive is formatted, HD SC Setup should The dp utility in A/UX does generic drive partitioning. You can use it from A/UX and MacOS. The interface is purely command line driven so it's nowhere as easy to use as HD SC Setup. I think it would be a good idea to allow HD SC Setup to partition generic drives. Lots of space in this newgroup is filled with partitioning and mounting types of questions and problems. That was my biggest problem when I first got A/UX (Jasmine generously gave me a copy of their DriveWare even though I was not one of their customers to help me out). This is a good area for Apple to improve upon, especially since there is not a lot of A/UX expertise outside of Apple. (And this is an A/UX thing, not a Unix thing). I am working on my own A/UX mounting software that should shore up a few gaps in Apple's software. Tony Cooper sramtrc@albert.dsir.govt.nz
liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) (06/06/91)
In <1991Jun6.013941.4670@am.dsir.govt.nz> tony@tui.marcam.dsir.govt.nz (Tony Cooper) writes: >Lots of space in this newgroup is filled with partitioning and mounting types >of questions and problems. That was my biggest problem when I first got A/UX >(Jasmine generously gave me a copy of their DriveWare even though I was not >one of their customers to help me out). This is a good area for Apple to >improve upon, especially since there is not a lot of A/UX expertise outside >of Apple. (And this is an A/UX thing, not a Unix thing). >I am working on my own A/UX mounting software that should shore up a few >gaps in Apple's software. One of the main difficulties is that A/UX and MacOS have different views about which fields in an official partition map entry are actually significant. Back during the A/UX 2.0 beta period, I formatted & partitioned a drive using the supplied non-Apple software, and it worked fine under MacOS. Looked at from A/UX, the partition map entry magic numbers were all zero (not the correct value!). I asked Apple DTS to issue a technote on this area, and was told "this isn't an appropriate subject for a technote - people developing partitioning software who claim to support A/UX should read the A/UX documentation". I hope attitudes to A/UX have changed since, but the problem that all these people keep bumping into is that software with no claims to support A/UX won't even work as "standard MacOS" when vuewed from A/UX. Perhaps Kent or someone with A/UX responsibilities in DTS would care to reconsider producing a technote in this area? -- % William Roberts Internet: liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk % Queen Mary & Westfield College UUCP: liam@qmw-dcs.UUCP % Mile End Road Telephone: +44 71 975 5234 % LONDON, E1 4NS, UK Fax: +44 81-980 6533
tony@tui.marcam.dsir.govt.nz (Tony Cooper) (06/06/91)
In article <3127@redstar.dcs.qmw.ac.uk>, liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes: |> |>I hope attitudes to A/UX have changed since, but the problem that all these |>people keep bumping into is that software with no claims to support A/UX won't |>even work as "standard MacOS" when vuewed from A/UX. |> |>Perhaps Kent or someone with A/UX responsibilities in DTS would care to |>reconsider producing a technote in this area? I second that. It is now a frequently asked question "my drive shows up on the desktop under MacOS but not A/UX". It was asked twice this week - once wrt CDROMs and once wrt hard drives. I think a technote should be produced stating just what needs to be in the partition map for the drive to show up under A/UX. I suspec that people are missing out on drives for the want of a bit turned on here or there or something simple like that. And the existence of the tech note might make more people aware of the need to be A/UX-wary even if the drive is not partitioned for A/UX. Tony Cooper
ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) (06/07/91)
In article <1991Jun5.141103.23420@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>, sysmark@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt) writes: > Granted that *formatting* is (or, at least, can be) very drive-specific. But > I don't understand why partitioning can't be supported for all drives. Isn't > the partition layout squirreled away in some known place (e.g. block N of the > first cylinder, or some such)? Once the drive is formatted, HD SC Setup should > be able to determine the drive characteristics (number of heads, sectors/track, > and so forth) with standard SCSI commands, following which it could define the > partitions, copy appropriate things to the Mac partition, and so on. > > It's my impression that HD SC Setup sniffs the drive, notices that it isn't an > Apple drive, and refuses to deal with it in any way, even though it could, if > it wanted to, do things like define the partitions. If I'm wrong, then please > correct me. If not, then I'd tend to agree with Mr. Gunn, though perhaps I'd > consider "sleazy" a bit strong; how about "shoddy"? Well, here we go again. Let me give another example of how hard it is to support third party vendor SCSI disks. The general assumption is that a hard disk should start with asynchonous mode, and start a form of handshaking talking with the other end if they want synchronous mode, and at what speeds. Well, there are hard disks out there that maybe or possibly starts immediately in synchronous mode, and wonders why the Mac does not talk with them. If we said that HD Setup would work with *any* hard disk, and a customer gets into trouble to a similar case, then we are liable. Anyway, things are happening, so let's see what next year will bring. Regards, Kent Sandvik
buzz@apple.com (Steve Bollinger) (06/07/91)
In article <1991Jun5.141103.23420@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>, sysmark@aurora.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Bartelt) writes: > | What do you mean by "uniquely"? If Apple are sleazy then they are not the > | only ones. And in this case Apple are not sleazy at all. The A/UX SCSI disk > | driver is very generic indeed. It works with most 3rd party disk drives. Do > | you mean HD SC Setup? Disk formatting software is drive-specific. You can't > | expect Apple to support all 3rd pary drives out there. Impossible task. Apple > | supports their own drives which is all they have to do. > > Granted that *formatting* is (or, at least, can be) very drive-specific. But > I don't understand why partitioning can't be supported for all drives. Isn't > the partition layout squirreled away in some known place (e.g. block N of the > first cylinder, or some such)? Once the drive is formatted, HD SC Setup should > be able to determine the drive characteristics (number of heads, sectors/track, > and so forth) with standard SCSI commands, following which it could define the > partitions, copy appropriate things to the Mac partition, and so on. > > It's my impression that HD SC Setup sniffs the drive, notices that it isn't an > Apple drive, and refuses to deal with it in any way, even though it could, if > it wanted to, do things like define the partitions. If I'm wrong, then please > correct me. If not, then I'd tend to agree with Mr. Gunn, though perhaps I'd > consider "sleazy" a bit strong; how about "shoddy"? You can do some of this stuff with parted Also, it isn't too hard to make HD SC Setup work with all drives. I partitioned a Maxtor 380 with HD SC Setup once. For Apple to make it work with all drives and support it as such could be expensive. -Steve (this is just me talking, not Apple)
ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) (06/08/91)
In article <3127@redstar.dcs.qmw.ac.uk>, liam@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (William Roberts;) writes: > One of the main difficulties is that A/UX and MacOS have different views about > which fields in an official partition map entry are actually significant. Back > during the A/UX 2.0 beta period, I formatted & partitioned a drive using the > supplied non-Apple software, and it worked fine under MacOS. Looked at from > A/UX, the partition map entry magic numbers were all zero (not the correct > value!). > I asked Apple DTS to issue a technote on this area, and was told "this isn't > an appropriate subject for a technote - people developing partitioning > software who claim to support A/UX should read the A/UX documentation". > I hope attitudes to A/UX have changed since, but the problem that all these > people keep bumping into is that software with no claims to support A/UX won't > even work as "standard MacOS" when vuewed from A/UX. > Perhaps Kent or someone with A/UX responsibilities in DTS would care to > reconsider producing a technote in this area? Hi, busy, busy... Anyway, yes I'm pushing for a TN that talks about all those narly issues that IM and other documentation do not cover concerning hard disks, SCSI and partitioning in general (MacOS, A/UX). We did some groundwork earlier with a couple of DTS questions (which should be sooner or later in the DTA library and the Q&A stack. So let's see what will happen. We have a couple of new DTS engineers that are working with SCSI and similar issues. Yes, this is an important issue, third party vendors should get whatever information in order to get their hard disks working with our platforms. Kent