13 Jan
2008
13 Jan
'08
4:34 p.m.
On Jan 13, 2008, at 1:05 AM, Dave Dunfield wrote:
Why not write out a BACKUP tape with standalone BACKUP at the front
so you can do a restore install? Only read about it being done on
TKxx/TZxx drives, but it would be worth looking into, as it is the
"official" DEC way to build a restorable backup (and is how they
shipped the VMS tape distros) (haven't read too much about it because
I don't have any CompacTape media right now).
> My immediate concern is that I'd like to
make a full backup
> of the VMS 5.5 on the VLC, and also attempt restoring it to
> another drive.
The VLC is simply SCSI based, isn't it? I
wouldn't bother with
doing a
file-based backup, just because the SCSI drive will probably be
"quite
small" compared to today's drives. Just attach it to some other box
and do a block-copy of the whole drive. That'll create a file of eg.
4GB in size with everything in it, including partitioning and all the
file system(s). Simple to create, simple to restore to this or an
identical drive.
I've already done that - I put the drive from the VLC as an external
drive on the 3100 running NETBSD and dd'd it into an image file - but
my goal is to be able to survive a drive failure, and possibly also
move it to a larger drive. The original drive in question is an RZ23,
which is a 100M DEC labled Conner drive - I have three other similar
drives, two labled RZ23 and one Conner that are "really close" but
not exactly the same - apparently there were slightly different
variations and versions.
You'd probably do a file-based backup
additionally to be able to
restore to a different medium, though.
Exactly. If I understand it correctly, an image backup should restore
to any drive, and is the best way to insure that I can rebuild the
system in the future. 
13 Jan
13 Jan
8:40 p.m.
At 8:34 AM -0800 1/13/08, Scott Quinn wrote:
Why not write out a BACKUP tape with standalone BACKUP
at the front
so you can do a restore install? Only read about it being done on
TKxx/TZxx drives, but it would be worth looking into, as it is the
"official" DEC way to build a restorable backup (and is how they
shipped the VMS tape distros) (haven't read too much about it
because I don't have any CompacTape media right now).
I personally prefer a CD with Standalone Backup, that way you don't
have to worry about the tape going bad. But then I prefer CD's on my
PDP-11's where possible, so I don't have normal setups. :^) I know
on VAXen you can build Standalone Backup on a HD, I believe this
feature was dropped from Alpha after 6.1.
For my main box, a Compaq XP1000/667, I keep a combination of spare
HD's and a DLT tape or two with my system disk on it. Since it is an
Alpha, I boot from CD to backup/duplicate the system disk.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
14 Jan
14 Jan
1:11 p.m.
>Why not write out a BACKUP tape with standalone
BACKUP at the front
>so you can do a restore install? Only read about it being done on
>TKxx/TZxx drives, but it would be worth looking into, as it is the
>"official" DEC way to build a restorable backup (and is how they
>shipped the VMS tape distros) (haven't read too much about it
>because I don't have any CompacTape media right now).
I personally prefer a CD with Standalone Backup, that
way you don't
have to worry about the tape going bad. But then I prefer CD's on my
PDP-11's where possible, so I don't have normal setups. :^) I know
on VAXen you can build Standalone Backup on a HD, I believe this
feature was dropped from Alpha after 6.1.
What is needed to write a CD from a VAX? - presumably a writer that
can create 512 byte sectors? (I don't think any of my SCSI writers
can)...
Made some progress...
I discovered that both of my 8mm drives have developed mechanical
problems - The "press on" gears in the tape loading mechanics
appear to be problematifc - On one drive, a gear has split (not
much chance for repair), on the other the gear on the motor has
come loose - This I should be able to repair if I can get to it.
Fortunately the 4mm drive seems to be OK - I wrote a backup tape
which appears to have worked, although I have not tried to restore
it yet. I also wrote stand-alone backup to a tape, which took a
LONG time ... this went through the motions and looked like it
worked, however when I try to boot it I get a crash dump.
The good news is that BACKUP/IMAGE from one SCSI drive to another
worked fine - I was able to clone the system to a larger (1G)
drive which is now installed and working. I'll keep the original
RZ23L as a backup, and probably make at least one more.
The SCSI ZIP drive did not work at all on the VAX - I had hoped
that it would present as a normal SCSI drive (it works under
Linux fine), but although the VAX could see and identify it, it
could not access it (gave errors about not being able to allocate
blocks) - perhaps this is due to differences in the SCSI command
set implementation?
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
6:40 p.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Fortunately the 4mm drive seems to be OK - I wrote a
backup tape
Have you managed to restore one yet :-)
My experience of DAT is that after a (short) while they start
to chew tapes. Never had that with DLT: the drive may
break but the tape (for me at least) remains intact.
Mind you, I have working RD53s and TK50s so there may be something
in the water here :-)
The good news is that BACKUP/IMAGE from one SCSI drive
to
another worked fine
That's by design rather than luck ... BACKUP/IMAGE is supposed
to do that. If you BACKUP/IMAGE to a saveset instead, then
you'll have a single file that you can FTP somewhere else
for archiving.
Given that 18GB SCSI disks are cheap (== free, usually) and
readily available, I would hook one of those up, initialise it,
create a saveset on that and then FTP over to a nearby PC for
archiving to CD or DVD as appropriate. I've not tried 9GB or
18GB disks in a VLC, but I have three 18GB IBM SCA80 disks in
my VS 4000-90.
Antonio
arcarlini at iee.org
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