From: groot@idca.tds.philips.nl (Henk de Groot)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Copiing 1.5 distribution disks (sumarry)
Date: 21 Jan 93 08:08:27 GMT
Reply-To: groot@idca.tds.philips.nl (Henk de Groot)
X-Disclaimer: This opinion is mine alone

In <1993Jan18.144415.2849@dct.ac.uk> mcramm@dct.ac.uk (McRamm) writes:

>In article <groot.727213313@baukje.idca.tds.philips.nl>, groot@idca.tds.philips.nl (Henk de Groot) writes:
>> See, that's the problem, you need to have minix running to do this. I just
>> got the package so I have nothing running! So it leaves me the option to
>> install without a backup and make the backup later, or to use another OS. 
>> I want the last option, I don't want to use the originals.
>> It seems that the disk are rather marginal, I tried many things on my own
>> PC but it just didn't work.

>Maybe I'm missing something but coudln't you just use the demo version?
>I seem to recall that that's exactly what I did on my old Amiga 2000 to make
>my first backups.

Bingo, I tried that! Only... the demo version doesn't have dd on it. I ended
up using 'tee' the following way 'tee /dev/null < /dev/fd0 > /dev/fd0'. I
only wished the copies actualy worked :-(, they didn't. Somehow my drive was
not good enough.

I will sumarise what I found so far to make an end at the discussion and
maybe to help others with the same problem.

=============================================================================
		How to copy minix distribution disks (on a PC)

When you get the distibuton disk from Prentice Hall, the first thing to do is
write-protect them all and make copies. Making copies can be a real problem
without MINIX, because you have to use DOS or another OS.

Using a DOS machine:
If you have 360 Kb disk diskcopy works fine. The minix distribution disk
don't have a media-byte at the proper place so diskcopy will copy 40 tracks
which is fine. Use the following procedure:
	prepare an ordinary DOS 360 kb floppy.
	format your traget disk with DOS.
	now the copy process:
		insert the ordianry DOS floppy
		type 'dir a:'
		exchange the DOS floppy for the source floppy
		start 'diskcopy a: a:' (or on two (the same) drives 
					diskcopy a: b:)
		exchange with target disk if diskcopy asks for it.
	this does the job on 360 kb disks.

On 720 kb disks this procedure doesn't work, diskcopy will only copy 40 of
the 80 tracks.

For 720 kb disks you do the following:
	get a MINIX demonstration disk and start it. Prepare a harddisk
	partition of 1000 blocks (mkfs /dev/hd2 1000 to make a filesystem
	on partition 2 of the harddisk). You must of course prepare your
	harddisk before doeing this (and make backups of the other
	patitions too!!!). You have to use another disk because the
	demonstrion disk is full and can't hold an 720 kb image anyway.
	mount the harddisk on /user of the demonstration disk.
	cd to /user
	copy the disk in with 'tee /dev/null < /dev/fd0 > image'
	copy the image out to the target with 'tee /dev/null < image >
	/dev/fd0'
	
	If you don't have the demonstration disk, but have enough programming
	skill try to write a small program using direct bios calls (int 13)
	(I did this, I took the main part from a book though). Let the
	program read the floppydisk and write to the harddisk. Also prepare
	a program to do the reverse. Now format your target disk with DOS
	(important - there must be an DOS structure on it!). Also prepare 
	an ordianry disk (used to do 'DIR' on).
	
	now the copy process:
		insert the ordianry DOS floppy
		type 'dir a:'
			(this will set the bios disk parameters to the
			 correct state)
		exchange the DOS floppy for the soucre floppy
		start your copy-in program.
		put in your target disk.
		start your copy-out program.
			(because the target disk contains an DOS structure
			 at the start the bios will set the correct settings
			 before the disk is written!)
	this does the job on 720 kb disks.

If all this fails you may try PC-TOOLS or NORTON. I have tried norton, but it
didn't work for me, see next paragraph. It supposed to work. Maybe you have
to do the 'dir' trick with norton too, or let norton first look on the DOS
disk, than exchange the disk an write the disk to a file.

If all this fails you may have marginal disks. You can return the disks or
try to copy them on another computer. If you are lucky to have a real UNIX
system (or another MINIX system) can try to copy them there using the normal
unix tools (I assume you know them).

I had trouble with my disks, I couldn't copy them under DOS at all. I used
and AT&T UNIX system to copy them. The UNIX system did't have any problem
with it. Now that I had non-mariginal copies I tried to copy them again
using DOS. I succeded very well with the raw copy program using direct
bios calls. I could hear from the sound of the drive (stepping of the head)
that there was no problem anymore.

If you realy can't copy them the only alternative is use the originals to
setup the system. You can leave all the disks write-protected except the
/usr disk and the last disk of the distribution (I didn't look why). As soon
as you have MINIX running you can copy the disks using 'dd'.

I hope this will help others with the same problem.


H. de Groot - groot@idca.tds.philips.nl

Disclaimer:
	I didn't try the 360 kb floppy copy, I got this information from
	others. I did try the copy methods for 720 kb, but they did't work
	for me on my originals. I mentioned them anyway because they should
	work according to others. I checked the raw-copy menthod on my copied
	disks an that one worked anyway for non-marginal disks. 

P.S: Digital Equipment Corporation has nothing to do with this posting!
=============================================================================

Kind Regards,

Henk.

P.S. Dennis Cheng-Zen Yang from Taiwan - thanks for your response, mail
bounced ...

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