[rescue] reading old unix disks from Linux

[Walter Belgers]

> On 26 Apr 2019, at 17:46, Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> wrote:
>> So, I have disks of unknown partitions. Some of them are probably
>> swap.  How do I tell?
>
> As far as I can tell, the answer is "you guess".  Some disk
> partitioning schemes have types attached to partitions, in which case
> the type can be a hint.  But, if the type is unrecognized, or the
> partitioning scheme is one that doesn't have types, you have to guess.
>
> I've found that reading the beginning of a partition (with
> general-purpose tools, as in dd if=/dev/whatever bs=512 count=64 | less)
> will often help educate such guesses.

You could use the file command on it. That will recognise some partition
tables. Or use the binwalk tool. As for swap: that can hold all kinds of
random stuff, so thatbs hard to tell. If itbs none of the other
possibilities and itbs the 1st or 2nd partition, itbs probably swap :)

Walter.