[SunHELP] Changing hard drives SunOS 4.1.1 Sun4c

Mon Apr 15 01:32:10 CDT 2013

Hi Fredric

Just to confirm previous poster, 2Gb filesystems is your max (this is all from
memory, so feel free to correct me). 8 slices per disk, so max usable is 16Gb
per disk. I never used disksuite on this O/S so not sure if that would extend
(version of Veritas?).

You are correct in thinking that if you recover an image of a 1Gb disk onto a
larger disk, the system will still think you have a 1Gb disk, the label is
what is used to determine disk and slice sizes. So you can use your 9gb as a
1Gb no problem.

Any new disk can be large (I forget the limit, but > 9Gb), but limit your
slice sizes to 2Gb max.

As for dump/restore copies, after restore you would have to install a boot on
the disk. Also dump will require parameters as the default from what I
remember assumes 150Mb tape sizing.

One way to solve this is to hook up a SCSI CD (Set to SCSI ID 6) and boot
4.1.X CD and make a fresh install on new disk, then mount the old disk onto
new filesystem. Then you should be able to copy your progs across etc.

I have the ISOs for the old system,s if you need them.

Peter
---------------------------
Peter Stokes
Ashlyn Computer Services
Tel: 01636 627990
Mbl: 07977 532320
---------------------------

On 15 Apr 2013, at 02:45, adh at an.bradford.ma.us (Sandwich Maker) wrote:

> " From: Brad Walker <bwalker at musings.com>
> "
> " SunOS 4.1.1 only support 32 bit filesystems. Therefore your partition
sizes
> " can't exceed 4GB in size.
>
> 2G, in sunos4.  i suspect signed arithmetic.
>
> " I would partition this into a 3GB root, 512MB
> " swap, 1 GB /usr, and 3.5 GB /opt. Or something like this.
>
> there's not much you can do with root in sunos4; i wouldn't waste that
> much on it, and afaik /opt was a sVr4 / solaris2 invention.  i'd make
> /var separate.
>
> i don't recall if home dirs were under /home or /export as in
> solaris2, but that's the places i'd put big slices.
>
> but for this job fred would probably be satisfied just cloning his
> original fs layout, if not the exact sizes.
>
> " Then then "dump | restore xfi -" from the old disk to the new one should
> " make it work.
>
> that's the fastest copy i know of short of dd, which is geometry
> dependent.  remember to partition and format the target disk first...
>
> " But, your problem boils down to a the 32 bit filesystem limit.
>
> yup, 2G slices, and no more than 8 of them on a disk, unless you have
> disksuite 1.  any se disk should work, and most lvd can fall back to
> se, though you'll have to feed the geometry to format if it you can't
> match it to one of the disks sun used, or use john dimarco's master
> format.dat
> ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sunmanagers/format.dat
> or scsiinfo
> ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/scsiinfo/
>
> " On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Fredric QJ Bleholtz
<e5frog at gmail.com>wrote:
> "
> " > So, have this Sun Sparcstation 2, the frambuffer broke, bought a
> " > replacement, the PSU broke, bought a replacement, the external drive
> " > started acting up, took a backup copy with a clone tool on a PC,
internal
> " > drive started going wacky as well, had to turn it on it's side to make
it
> " > work... have swapped the NVRAM as well, hacked with an external
battery.
> " >
> " > So, soon there are no original parts left.
> " >
> " > I used the EaseUs hard drive clone tool from a Ultimate Boot CD, got an
old
> " > 2.25GB drive and successfully made a copy that it booted from. Got the
> " > panic copy of the external drive with the same program, only option at
the
> " > time was an SD-card in a SCSI-card reader and pointing a fan to the
> " > external hard drive (5.25" huge monster) at a pair of circuits going
hot.
> " >
> " > Disks in that size isn't very easy to come buy at reasonable price so
when
> " > a friend offered a 9GB hard drive with a 68 pin connector and a 50 pin
> " > adapter I tried it out. Copying from the original giant sized drive
didn't
> " > want to work again so I ran the EaseUs program from the UBCD 5.1.1 with
the
> " > SD-card instead. Went fine, no errors.
> " >
> " > After hooking it to the Sparcstation 2 it wasn't accepted, complained
about
> " > the header - seems it wasn't what it was supposed to be, found some tip
> " > about replacing a missing header and checked the format command but got
> " > stuck when it asked for cylinders etc, couldn't find any proper
information
> " > about that and I haven't dealt with it since I added hard drives to my
> " > Amiga in the early 90's.
> " >
> " > So I quit, took a look at the drive in WinHex with the drive hooked to
a
> " > SCSI-card in the PC. The header was emptied out, the previous "SUN1.3G
cyl
> " > 1965 alt 2 hd 17 sec 80 etc etc" wasn't there any more, possibly the
format
> " > command erases that even before you have entered any information?
> " >
> " > The 9GB drive seem to have been found but is there any idea to keep
trying
> " > with that, is it likely it will work?
> " > How come the 2.25GB drive worked with a binary copy, the header (at
least
> " > was) "SUN1.05 cyl 2036 alt 2 hd 14 sec 72" and wasn't correct either. I
> " > assumed it used the drive like it had that geometry and simply didn't
care
> " > about the rest of the hard drive.
> " >
> " > I have filled the 9GB drive with $FF and will attempt to write the
binary
> " > data back again, hope it will make a difference.
> " >
> " > I'm not interested in updating stuff, installing other OS or similar,
want
> " > to keep the same data, just swap to functional drives. I only keep this
> " > computer around so I can access that one program I need old data from
from
> " > time to time.
> " >
> " >
> " > I have the data that's going to be on the drive (I assume it's correct
as
> " > it was copied with no errors), just need a compatible drive or the
correct
> " > procedure to put it there.
> " > Any sane advice about this would be most helpful, these hard drives
don't
> " > hold on forever.
> " >
> " > / Fredric the newcomer.
> " > --
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
> internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
> adh at an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought
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