[Info-vax] Ods2 reader utility mount

[Bob Gezelter]

On Sep 6, 7:51 am, ChrisQ <blackh... at devnull.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am trying to recover some files from a couple of cdc 94171-330 scsi
> drives which were originally fitted to a Microvax II around 1990-1992.
> It was the main lab machine here at the time, before deserting to Sun3 a
> while later.
>
> I no longer have enough Qbus parts locally to build a working Microvax,
> so downloaded the ODS2 utility to catalog and read the drives. Tried it
> first on XP, but the xp disk man. utility won't let you assign a drive
> letter (which ods2 needs to mount the drive) until the drive is
> initialised, which is not really what I had in mind :-). Ok, move drive
> to Solaris 10 sparc box, but there's not much info with the utility, no
> examples of how to mount drive under unix. Have  tried various runes to
> get the drive mounted without success. ie: mount c6t1d0 /mnt, mount
> /dev/dsk/c6t0d0 /mnt, mount c6t1d0 etc etc.
>
> Drives are 20+ years old, but CDC made em good in those days and spin up
> fine, (After replacing one shorted tant cap on one and lubing the ground
> spring on the spindles) They are seen and recognised by windoze and
> sol10 format utility, so it looks like it will all fly, just can't get
> the drives mounted. Any ideas re correct syntax ?...
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris

Chris,

Before going too far, two recommendations:

- Make sure that the drive is write locked
- Do a Hexadecimal dump of the first couple of blocks and make sure
that it is a home and boot blocks.

Personally, I would also be tempted to hook it up to a hardware
forensic write blocker and and also make a forensic copy of the drive
just in case.

I would also want to know which controller they were connected to.
Some controllers did "interesting" things with hardware volumes, which
could yield unexpected results when looked at as a simple single disk.

Caution is recommended. Write blockers are not expensive, and a single
"oops" could make the process much more challenging.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com