Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:13684 comp.periphs.scsi:26611 comp.sys.next.hardware:13680 comp.os.linux.misc:29729 comp.os.linux.help:65468 comp.os.386bsd.misc:4090 comp.os.386bsd.questions:14455 Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!netmbx.de!CNB.CompuNet.DE!zrz.TU-Berlin.DE!cs.tu-berlin.de!elwood!wolf From: wolf@prz.tu-berlin.de (Thomas Wolfram) Subject: More SyQuest infos (was Re: SyQuest SQ3270S for Data Exchange?) Sender: news@prz.tu-berlin.de (Newsadmin Elwood-PRZ) Message-ID: <CzAFDt.48r@prz.tu-berlin.de> Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 02:39:28 GMT Lines: 81 References: <CyrtGF.2u4@prz.tu-berlin.de> <39m6eh$hts@news.cc.utah.edu> Organization: PRZ TU-Berlin X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions Hi, thanks for the informative answer. Terry Lambert (terry@cs.weber.edu) wrote: > In article <CyrtGF.2u4@prz.tu-berlin.de> wolf@prz.tu-berlin.de (Thomas Wolfram) writes: [...] > ] What about the BSD file system of NeXTSTEP? Is exchanging > ] cartridges possible? > It's possible -- if you write a NeXTStep "BSD FS" for BSD, or a BSD > "BSD FS" for NeXTStep. I wasn't refering to *BSD and NeXTSTEP but only to NeXTSTEP (I just used the term "BSD file system"). I'm aware of the fact that the file system of NeXTSTEP is incompatible with other BSD file systems. > It's easier if you use the media as a linearly addressable media -- > and then just tar directly to and from the raw device. Yes, of course, but if I had want to do this I would have bought a streamer... > Making the device cross-mountable between operating system types is a > non-trivial task, especially if you are missing source for one of those > operating systems. This becomes more difficult (byte order problems and > access alignment problems, etc.) if you are trying to move the media > between machines with different processer architectures. In the meantime I tryed it under NEXTSTEP. I formatted a 270MB media on a black NeXT station (m86k CPU) and I was able to mount it on a Intel-NeXT-machine and use it vica-versa. So at least NeXTSTEP can handle different byte orders (what we knew anyway, because there are the FAT binaries, etc.). One expierence I made is that you shouldn't use a Partition Table (by calling fdisk bevor disk -i) on the SyQuest media if you format the media on a Intel-NeXT and want to use it in black hardware too. It seems black NeXT don't understand the partition table scheme from the Intel world. Without partition table NEXTSTEP uses the whole disk like any other SCSI disk (from sector 0...n). Of course you loose the option to split the media for different O/S and to boot Intel-NeXT directly from it. BTW, creating a partition table on the SyQuest media with NeXTSTEP's fdisk gives another result then doing it under DOS because NeXTSTEP detects 4 heads/17 sectors from the SyQuest drive instead of 64 heads/32 sectors (with a Adaptec). It might be that this (4/17 under NEXTSTEP) could be overridden by making an entry in /etc/disktab. Also you should use 'fdisk -useAllSectors /dev/rsd?h' because otherwise fdisk limits the access to those sectors "which are bios-accessible". To my knowledge these BIOS limits are 1024 cylinders, 256 heads and 64 sectors, but NEXTSTEP's fdisk limits then partitions to a size of ~20MB - very strange. As for DOS: I was told by a SyQuest person that as long as you use the SQDRIVER.SYS the translation scheme doesn't matter because the driver handles it (there is a additional translation done by it). [...interesting stuff deleted...] Thomas -- Thomas Wolfram <thomas@aeon.in-berlin.de> Germany: 0 30 31421171 PRZ TU Berlin <wolf@prz.tu-berlin.de> abroad: +49 30 31421171 EANTC WWW: http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de:/~wolf _____________________________________________________________________________ _____S__I__C____T__R__A__N__S__I__T____G__L__O__R__I__A____M__U__N__D__I_____