You may have the answer, here, in that IF it's a SCSI device (which it is) and
IF it's capable of behaving as a reader (which it is) then it's up to the SCSI
subsystem to move the data into the system. IF the device, in whatever mode
it "comes up" in is able to read the SCSI CD, then it should be no different
than any other CD drive, irrespective of the ability to write the device.
I guess it all comes down to the state in which the system finds itself when
it's trying to read the SCSI channel for boot.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Wright" <dtwright(a)uiuc.edu>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: Half on, half off -- New CD-R drive and 512-byte blocks
I do know, from experience, that any SCSI Plextor
CDROM/CD-R/CD-RW will boot
basically anything -- Sparc, SGI, RS/6000, HP,.... I've tried plextors of
varying ages (old 8plex caddy-loader up to a 12/4/32 CD-RW that's about 1
year
old) and they all work great...
Christopher Smith said:
Hi everybody. This isn't strictly on topic,
but I think the intent
of the question makes it close enough.
I just bought a new CD-RW drive -- a Sony CRX145s -- and am curious
about whether it may read the 512-byte blocks necessary for using it
as a backup boot device on my VAXen, Sparc, SGI, etc.
Does anyone know whether this, or just for information, some other
CD-RW unit, will do such a thing?
Note that I do know that discs are written in 2048 byte blocks, and
the answer won't affect its performance in writing disks on these
systems. I am also aware that doing this for the long term may
needlessly shorten the life of the drive. As I said above, it is
more for curiosity, and eventually I would like to know that in case
my RRD42 dies, I have a backup. :)
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl
Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
- Dan Wright
(dtwright(a)uiuc.edu)
(
http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
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