29 Aug
2006
29 Aug
'06
5:31 p.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
Yes, indeed, this drive *does* spin up. Actually, I've cycled the power
on it about a half-dozen times by now, messing with this imaging
project. I have noted in past threads some consternation with this
drive, and it's just what I want to 'manage' with these imaging
efforts. When (I guess not if :) this drive goes bad, I'll have the image.
Oops, my mistake. I transcribed that from my notes incorrectly. Should
read: *RD53*
That's just it, though. I'm so much of a VAX newbie. I have *no*
knowledge of what is and isn't on these system, since I've been scared
to even power them up until I know more about what I'm doing. Thus the
desire to get the drives imaged *before* I do something that I can't
recover from. I just don't know what is dangerous or not, yet.
Still, we could hide under our beds everyday trying to avoid life's
little risks, right? I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and
just crank one of these systems up and see what I've got. I have
successfully imaged the drive on the 3100, so at least I can give that
system a try.
I'll have to be a quick study with VMS, if that's what's on it. I do
have a mostly complete set of VMS v4 (I think) manuals, so I'll just
have to dig in, assuming that is indeed what I have on the system.
The RD53 is
from uVAX II with a RQDX3.
And this makes me think of something I don't think anyone has directly
warned you of. Sort out everything with another drive than this. *IF* it
will spin up, you want to get the data off of it without powering it back
down. RD53's were unreliable 10-20 years ago, they can't have gotten any
better :^(
The RD23 is
from a uVAX I with a RQDX3.
RD23? Assuming this isn't a typo, what on earth is an RD23?
(BTW, it also have a VAXstation 3100-m38 with
RZ(something) SCSI drive
which I successfully imaged on a PC with SCSI capabilities)
<snip>
Yep, I think Pat's idea to do a
diskless/network boot of NetBSD and then
image off from there is the way to go.
Actually you might have another solution here. Is the VAXstation 3100-m38
running VMS? If it is, has TCP/IP, and the SCSI HD has enough free space,
simply net-boot VMS. Though if you're more comfortable with Pat's
idea,
it's probably the better solution.
Time will tell.
Thanks for the good words.
Jared