How to transfer data from Xenix 2.3.4 harddisk to Linux 2.4.19
Lutz Michaelsen
Xenix box does not have a network card nor a CD-ROM
Linux box with SuSE 7.3 and 2.4.19 Kernel
Goal: I want to transfer the data from Xenix to the linux box.
I tried to mount the harddisk on my linux box, but it wasn't successful.
sysv-module is there, but the partition on the Xenix hardisk is splitted
with "divvy".
I installed a second harddisk in the xenix box and created a single
partition with "mkdev hd". I was able to put the Xenix data on this new
harddisk, but Linux was still not able to mount the new harddisk.
Question: What else can I try to transfer the data from Xenix to Linux?
Any help or hints are appreciated.
Thanks
Lutz
Tony Lawrence
Bill Vermillion
Lutz Michaelsen <lmi...@t-online.de> wrote:
>Xenix 2.3.4 box having a harddisk with lots of data (600Mb)
>Xenix box does not have a network card nor a CD-ROM
>Linux box with SuSE 7.3 and 2.4.19 Kernel
>Goal: I want to transfer the data from Xenix to the linux box.
>I tried to mount the harddisk on my linux box, but it wasn't
>successful. sysv-module is there, but the partition on the Xenix
>hardisk is splitted with "divvy".
Xenix file systems just aren't recognized by many things anymore
except the systems from SCO. The Xenix file system compatiblity
went away when the Sys V.3 systems gave way to Sys V.4 - in the
early/mid 1990s.
You are probably going to have to resort to serial file transfer.
With that much data you are looking at probably a serial connect
time of a few days.
>I installed a second harddisk in the xenix box and created a single
>partition with "mkdev hd". I was able to put the Xenix data on this new
>harddisk, but Linux was still not able to mount the new harddisk.
As above - Xenix FS just aren't recongizable.
>Question: What else can I try to transfer the data from Xenix to Linux?
Well maybe an intermediate solution to put on an Sys V.3 or SCO
system and mount the Xenix files and transfer those to a Unix file
system and then mount that file system on the Linux system.
Anyway you look at it you are going to have to perform some real
work. I don't see any easy way - at least based on my experience.
Bill
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
Dan Martin
Dear Lutz,
You might want to try writing a tar archive on
the Xenix machine to a file, then compress that file.
Then use tar to write the compressed tar file to
floppy.
Reverse the procedure on the Linux side.
Rinse and repeat.
Depending on the data you're compressing on Xenix, you
might get 80% compression.
600 MB on Xenix sounds like a lot. Are you sure
it's not 60MB?
You could use Lone-tar on Xenix to write a compressed
"tar" archive directly to floppy, then use Lone-tar
on Linux to extract.
Good luck,
Dan
Bill Vermillion
Dan Martin <dcma...@affinitycorp.com> wrote:
>"Lutz Michaelsen" <lmi...@t-online.de> wrote in message news:<aj5gus$g2a$01$1...@news.t-online.com>...
>> Xenix 2.3.4 box having a harddisk with lots of data (600Mb)
>> Xenix box does not have a network card nor a CD-ROM
>> Linux box with SuSE 7.3 and 2.4.19 Kernel
>> Goal: I want to transfer the data from Xenix to the linux box.
>> I tried to mount the harddisk on my linux box, but it wasn't
>> successful. sysv-module is there, but the partition on the
>> Xenix hardisk is splitted with "divvy".
>> I installed a second harddisk in the xenix box and created a
>> single partition with "mkdev hd". I was able to put the Xenix
>> data on this new harddisk, but Linux was still not able to
>> mount the new harddisk.
>
>> Question: What else can I try to transfer the data from Xenix
>> to Linux?
>You might want to try writing a tar archive on the Xenix machine
>to a file, then compress that file. Then use tar to write the
>compressed tar file to floppy. Reverse the procedure on the
>Linux side. Rinse and repeat. Depending on the data you're
>compressing on Xenix, you might get 80% compression. 600 MB
>on Xenix sounds like a lot. Are you sure it's not 60MB? You
>could use Lone-tar on Xenix to write a compressed "tar" archive
>directly to floppy, then use Lone-tar on Linux to extract. Good
OK - here is something to look out for that I found in the past and
may help someone who may have to do this.
SCO's tar files have the ability to write across floppies. Most of
the other tar facilities do not have that and will be hesitant
about extracting them.
If you extract a file spanning disks the first floppy will write
the file name on the target system. If you put in the next floppy
then you will get an error [I don't remember the exact wording as
it has been years since I've done that] about it not appearing to
be the start of a file or an incomplete file, and the question
'Extract anyway'.
Well at this point if you continue the second portion of the file
will overwrite the first portion, while the SCO version knows
enough to append to the first file.
Here is the workaround.
When the first piece of the file is extracted rename it to
something like <filename>.part1, then extract the next and rename it
to <filename>.part2 and continue until the next file appears.
At this point you can type cat filename.* >>filename and the file
will be complete as it was on the original.
And 600MB on a Xenix system is a lot as the maximum I recall from
memory is 512MB. :-). There may have been patches later - but at
one time 512MB was the limit - which seemed adequate given the 16MB
RAM limit in Xenix.
Steve Kirkendall
> I installed a second harddisk in the xenix box and created a single
> partition with "mkdev hd". I was able to put the Xenix data on this new
> harddisk, but Linux was still not able to mount the new harddisk.
>
> Question: What else can I try to transfer the data from Xenix to Linux?
Instead of putting a Xenix filesystem on that second hard disk, I suggest
you try using tar to write to it directly. I haven't messed with hard
disks in Xenix for a long time, but I *think* the command to write the
data would be...
tar cvf /dev/hd11 /directory/containing/your/data
On the Linux end, you would extract the data with...
tar xPvf /dev/hdb1
Obviously this is untested, and you *definitely* want to know what
those device names (/dev/hd11 and /dev/hdb1) on their respective OSes
before you consider trying this. ("man HW hd" on Xenix, and "man hd"
on Linux.) You could clobber the data on the wrong hard disk if you
get it wrong. The partition number may need to be tweaked; I tried
to use partition 1 of the second disk on both OSes but partition
numbering is not very well standardized so "1" on one OS could be
anything from "0" to "4" on the other.
Lutz Michaelsen
Finally I got all the the data from my xenix box to my linux box ... thanks
to everybody.
What did I do ...
Xenix Box
-----------
installed a small IDE disk (1GB) as 2. harddisk
fdisk => xenix partition, no filesystem created
tar cvf /dev/rdsk/1s0 <directory-to-transfer>
Linux Box
----------
installed IDE disk as Slave on 2. IDE controller
tar xvf /dev/hdd
Here we are ... all data arrived perfectly.
Thanks to everybody for all the hints.
Regards
Lutz
"Steve Kirkendall" <skirk...@dsl-only.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3d59...@nntp0.pdx.net...
David Font
drive connected to a 1540-type SCSI adaptor?
If you have a tape drive, you could/should be able to perform a cpio backup
from the XENIX system and transfer it into the Linux system (does the Linux
have a tape drive?).
"Lutz Michaelsen" <lmi...@t-online.de> wrote in message
news:aj5gus$g2a$01$1...@news.t-online.com...
Bill Vermillion
Lutz Michaelsen <lmi...@t-online.de> wrote:
>Finally I got all the the data from my xenix box to my linux box
>... thanks to everybody.
>What did I do ...
>Xenix Box
>-----------
>installed a small IDE disk (1GB) as 2. harddisk
>fdisk => xenix partition, no filesystem created
>tar cvf /dev/rdsk/1s0 <directory-to-transfer>
>Linux Box
>----------
>installed IDE disk as Slave on 2. IDE controller
>tar xvf /dev/hdd
>Here we are ... all data arrived perfectly.
Elegant solution. Clean and simple. Now why didn't I think of
that :-(