[Info-vax] Backup/physical question

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-03-10 22:38:57 +0000, Michael Moroney said:

> JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot at vaxination.ca> writes:
> 
>> Can I use LD driver to create a .DMG file the same size as the floppy 
>> and mount both devices as /FOREIGN and  BACKUP/PHYSICAL  floppy: lda0:
> 
> It should work fine.
> 
> Use $ LD> CREATE /CLONE=<floppy device> and it will copy the size and
> other metadata, and BACKUP/PHYSICAL won't complain of mismatches.

I'd acquire and use one of the ~US$10 to ~US$25 USB floppy drives 
that's available on Amazon, NewEgg and elsewhere, and would avoid 
trying to use a VAX-era DEC floppy drive here — some of the DEC floppy 
drives back in the VAX era were standard devices, and some were rather 
more... unique.   Without knowing which old VAX drive and which 3.5" 
media, compatibility is not clear.   I'd hope that the newer floppy 
drive would be more likely to work and to read the floppy disk than 
might a DEC VAX floppy drive that probably hasn't seen much use in a 
quarter-century, and that might just have the fuzzy gunk and the 
dried-up pieces that befit its age.   Use dd on OS X for the USB device 
transfer, obviously.


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