On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 19:03 -0600, Steve Bergman wrote:

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 17:45 -0700, Mace Eliason wrote:

...

Hi,

I am working on a project where I have to move some parts files from an old Unix server. I have tared the files to floppy disc, but I can't mount them.

As an alternative, you could format the diskette using SCO's dosformat (or dosfmt or something like that. Review the man page.)

No need. Use it in raw mode. Can get more on it, no file sustem requirements in the sending or receiveing system. Using someting like cpio...

find . | cpio -aov >/dev/fd0 # of fd0H1440 or ...

cpi also had some key letters added such as -O so that I/O redirection is not necessary. Find can use all the usual parameters to do selection.

To get more on the floppy

find . | cpio -oav | compress >/dev/fd0 # of fd0H1440 or ...

And then copy the tar archive using the doscopy (or doscp or something like that. Review the man page.)

That part remains essentially the same, but use tar or cpio from the raw file again:

cpio -iduma -I /dev/fd0 # or ... and or </dewv/fd0 ...

If you compressed it

uncompress </dev/fd0 | cpio -idumav # v=make noise as usual

I think its going to be something like:

# dosformat a: # doscp mytarfile.tar a:

Then use linux's mcopy to read the diskette.

It's been a long time since I have used SCO.

They say your memory is the second thing to go.

Your suggested way also will work.

-Steve

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 19:04 -0600, Johnny Hughes wrote:

Is there no network connection to the old server. There are tons of ways to move files (ftp, nfs, scp, sftp) that don't require you to recompile your kernel.

Unfortunately, only very few SCO Unix 3.2 machines had the optional, pay extra for, tcp/ip support.

-Steve

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 18:18 -0700, Mace Eliason wrote:

Thanks for the ideas.

The file is about 6megs, I have no network support, no man files.

I am not that robust when it comes to the command prompt. I did manage to get tar to split the files to multiple disks. using

tar -c6 PART

the 6 sent it to the floppy drive. Kinda hard when I was on site with no manuals or anthing.

IIRC, use cpio. It will automatically prompt for new media as one fills up. On input, will prompt for new input *IIRC*.

<snip>

HTH Bill

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 17:04 -0800, Raymond Lillard wrote:

Mace Eliason wrote:

...

Hi,

I am working on a project where I have to move some parts files from an old Unix server. I have tared the files to floppy disc, but I can't mount them.

forget the filesystem. Use the dd command. all block devices can also be accessed as char devices in Unix.

Don't need dd. The nature of *IX file systems is that raw file system access is "automatic" just by requesting it.

I'm assuming your files are small enough to fit on a single floppy?

Write to floppy:

tar czvf - <path> | dd of=/dev/rfd0xx

s/ | dd //

Older unix systems may not have gzip/bzip and if they do, may not have it callable from tar. Might need to use it in a pipeline.

Read from floppy:

cd <path> dd if=/dev/rfd0xx | tar xzvf -

tar -xzvf /dev/rfd0xx

Note: You will need to determine the correct device names. I have written this off the top of my head, and I haven't used a floppy in quite a while.

Ray

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

But will cpio split the file it is to large to fit on a floppy? What about the files I have on the disc right now. I was using dos formated floppies and then ran tar to do the copy. Is it possible that I can read them using some of the suggested way?

Steve Bergman wrote:

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 20:15 -0500, William L. Maltby wrote:

...

I can't answer your question, but I would like to suggest an alternative that might be less work. Use cpio to make on output file and compress it onto floppy using the compress command, which I have checked also exists on CentOS (I *presume that your old UNIX doesn't have {b,g}zip. I see a reference also to pack, but it seems to be only man pages. Both of these compressions programs are very old and should be on your system.

For cpio, which does work well on SCO:

cd path_to_directory find . | cpio -ocv | compress > /dev/rfd0135ds18

and then to extract under Centos:

cd path_to_where_you_want_to_extract gunzip < /dev/floppy | cpio -idmvc

BTW, I don't think that multivolume archives work between SCO and Linux for either cpio or tar. They might work for cpio, but definitely not with compression.

If it works and you need multivolume, you'd have to do:

find . | cpio -ocv -O/dev/rfd0135ds18

Also note (FWIW) that SCO's tar will silently fail to back up empty directories and will not backup device files.

-Steve

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Steve Bergman wrote:

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 18:29 -0700, Mace Eliason wrote:

...

But will cpio split the file it is to large to fit on a floppy? What about the files I have on the disc right now. I was using dos formated floppies and then ran tar to do the copy. Is it possible that I can read them using some of the suggested way?

What exact commands did you use to get it onto the floppy?

Unless you compressed the file first, I'd say its unlikely that its all there. SCO tar has no built in compression and you obviously can't fit a 6mb file on a 1.44Mb diskette.

You can try 'tar tvf /dev/floppy' on the Centos box to see what's on the floppy.

-Steve

The above command won't work because I can't mount the floppy drive. I just get you must specify the filesystem type.

If the file system type is System V I should be able to compile that into centos right?

I will try all the other ideas that you all have given me tomorrow but I don't mind spending some time tonight compiling for the old file system.

I have run make menuconfig and then navigated to sysv file system and placed an * on it then saved the ran make but it gave me a error and never finished the make.

Mace

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Sorry Steve your right

I did a quick test of what you suggested on my laptop because my server is down stairs. My laptop is running Ubuntu and it didn't work. I just went down and tried it on Centos and it worked :) :) I was able to copy the content of the first disk to the hard drive. So I will try the cat < /dev/fd0 >> tempfile.tar on all the discs to see if that works.

You guys are life savers.

I will let you know what happens

Steve Bergman wrote:

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 18:55 -0700, Mace Eliason wrote:

...

The above command won't work because I can't mount the floppy drive. I just get you must specify the filesystem type.

No, there is no filesystem involved. This is raw io from the floppy. Think of the floppy drive itself as a 1.44MB file called /dev/floppy.

There *was* a dos filesystem on the diskettes. There is not one anymore.

There is one tar archive spread across 7 pieces of raw media which just contain a stream of 1.44 million bytes each.

-Steve

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CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 18:29 -0700, Mace Eliason wrote:

But will cpio split the file it is to large to fit on a floppy? What about the files I have on the disc right now. I was using dos formated floppies and then ran tar to do the copy. Is it possible that I can read them using some of the suggested way?

Using the -O parameter that Steve mentioned will allow cpio to recognize end-of-media and request a media change.

<snip>

On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 18:29 -0700, Mace Eliason wrote:

But will cpio split the file it is to large to fit on a floppy? What about the files I have on the disc right now. I was using dos formated floppies and then ran tar to do the copy. Is it possible that I can read them using some of the suggested way?

Sorry, I missed one of your posts where you explained what command line you used.

To extract, you might try:

tar xvMf /dev/floppy

or tar xvMf /dev/fdxxx

where fdxxx is any one of the devices you see when you do a ls dev/fd*

I feel your pain. It's always frustrating when the machine is 100 miles away from your office.

Its also possible that:

cat < /dev/floppy >> tempfile.tar

for each of the diskettes in order to concatenate their contents together, and then when you've done them all:

tar xvf tempfile.tar

*might* just work.

-Steve