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From: jca@bighorn.accessnv.com (J.C. Archambeau)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Can I read a DOS written Zip disk under FreeBSD?
Date: 20 Dec 1996 04:20:37 GMT
Organization: Access Nevada Inc.
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:32806
William R. Somsky (somsky@dirac.phys.washington.edu) wrote:
: Is there any way to read a DOS written Zip disk under FreeBSD?
Yes. It's just a standard MS-DOS FAT FS. Keep in mind that only
SCSI Zip drives are supported. The parallel ones are unsupported and
I don't know when they will be.
: Either mounting it as a DOS filesystem or using mtools? I couldn't
: get either way to work -- but perhaps I'm doing it wrong.
Either should work. I haven't tried mine under FreeBSD yet since
I'm waiting for the CD-ROM to be available. I do know that my
SCSI Zip worked under an ancient version of Linux with no problems.
: Is there anyway I can copy the files from the (DOS) Zip disk directly
: from withing FreeBSD?
Just mount it as you would any other SCSI device. Another user did
recommend using it as an optical device since it has similiar quirks
as an optical drive which is also a removable media drive.
-- cut here --
> I'm currently looking for an efficient way to do an automatic daily backup.
> Weekly backups go to a DAT streamer, but this is not a practical solution for
> 100-200K per day. A local dealer suggested to use an SCSI zip drive for the
> daily backup.
> What do you think about this method? Are there any known problems with
> zip drives under FreeBSD (2.1R)? Is the technology reliable?
I've got 2 ZIP drives (SCSI) and have used them on 486, Pentium, and DEC
Alpha systems without any problems, both as backup devices AND system
boot devices. I even managed to squeeze a mininal DEC Unix (aka OSF/1)
system onto a cartridge (which is 96MB by the way - 100,000,000
bytes!). FreeBSD fits just fine in the available space and is not TOO
unresponsive!
The only 'problem' I've seen is FreeBSD spitting a "SCSI Attention/Media
may have changed" message on the console when I change a cartridge.
Apparently, the SCSI disk driver doesn't think that this is kosher.
Of course with dump/tar, you treat the ZIP like a great big floppy drive
if you want prompts for media changes.
My disktab entry looks like-
zip100|iomega100|iomega ZIP 100 96Mb:\
:dt=SCSI:ty=???:se#512:nt#64:ns#32:nc#96:\
:pa#16384:oa#0:ba#4096:fa#512:ta=4.2BSD:\
:pb#16384:ob#16384:tb=swap:\
:pc#196608:oc#0:\
:ph#163840:oh#32768:bh#4096:fh#512:th=4.2BSD:
Don't know what should go in the 'type' field!?
--
> The only 'problem' I've seen is FreeBSD spitting a "SCSI Attention/Media
> may have changed" message on the console when I change a cartridge.
> Apparently, the SCSI disk driver doesn't think that this is kosher.
I think, in the long run, the `od' driver is a better candidate for
removable media drives, even if they are not strictly `optical'. They
share the same set of problems as MO drives.
If you wanna give it a try, you can add a hook to /sys/scsi/scsiconf.c
like this:
[existing entries:]
static struct scsidevs knowndevs[] =
{
/* od's must be probed before sd's since some of them identify as T_DIRECT */
#if NOD > 0
{
T_OPTICAL, T_OPTICAL, T_REMOV, "MATSHITA", "PD-1 LF-1000", "*",
"od", SC_MORE_LUS
},
{
T_DIRECT, T_OPTICAL, T_REMOV, "SONY", "SMO-*", "*",
"od", SC_MORE_LUS
},
^^^^
around here, put:
{
T_DIRECT, T_OPTICAL, T_REMOV, "IOMEGA", "XXX*", "*",
"od", SC_ONE_LUS
},
...with "XXX" being the beginning of your device model string (as you
can obtain from the probe message in /var/log/messages). This will
forcibly assign the IOMEGA drive to the `od' driver. Of course, you
need
device od0
in your config file. It should become device /dev/od0 etc. then.
Disclaimer: All this will only work for FreeBSD 2.2-something systems.
--
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