26 Apr
2014
26 Apr
'14
4:12 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: 26 April 2014 23:42
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Checking Contents of Unknown Disks
On 04/26/2014 03:21 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote:
block
I have some SCSI disks with unknown contents
which I would like to
check before overwriting them. I don't even know what OS they were
used with. The only systems I have to hand with SCSI are MicroVAXen,
so I can check them for VMS format without issue. However, for the
ones that are not VMS format I would need a way to find out what format
they are.
I don't know what facilities VMS gives you, but I normally drag the first
off an unknown disk and just look at it in a hex
editor.
What tools do you use to get the raw blocks?
Don't forget that you'll typically have a partition table of some format
to
deal
with, before you can get at the individual
filesystem(s) on the disk.
only?
Another way would be to use a PC SCSI adapter. I
don't have one yet,
but I think I will get one. I like the look of the Adaptec 2940AU.
I'm going off hazy memory, but I think that the AU was narrow (8-bit) SCSI
Of course that might work for what you have now, but a
2940UW might be a
better bet just in case you end up wanting to connect wide SCSI devices in
the
future.
The SCSI disks I am most interested in tend to be the narrow ones anyway,
but thanks for the suggestion about the UW model. When I looked at the other
models I thought I saw SCSI-1 support missing, but on double checking the UW
model does support it, so UW definitely looks better. I think the 29160
looks pretty good too in terms of flexibility, although I can't quite tell
from the specs if it will handle the older disks.
Regards
Rob