[Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

Thanks Jeremy, if I’m understanding what you’re saying correctly, I’m going to feel really stupid.  Am I correct in reading this that I don’t have to boot into Standalone Backup, in order to backup the system disk?  I’ve thought that was a requirement for cloning a drive for well over 20 years.

The copy is running.

Thanks,
Zane




> On Apr 21, 2019, at 9:09 PM, Jeremy Begg <jeremy at vsm.com.au> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Juust noticed I may have got your DKA100 and DKA200 around the wrong way,
> but the mechanism is still a useful one to know.
> 
> 	Jeremy
> 
>>> One of the main systems that I want to Virtualize is a VAXstation 4000/60
>>> with a BA350 shelf.  The only HD connected to the system is a RZ28-VA SBB
>>> (2GB) as DKA200:, so yesterday I added a RZ29-VA SBB (4GB) as DKA100:.  I
>>> setup Standalone Backup on the RZ29 and booted into Standalone backup.
> 
>> Does your VAXstation/60 boot from the RZ28?  Does it run VMS 7.3?
>> If so, you might like to try this instead:
> 
>> 1. If you don't have it installed on your VAXstation already, download and
>>  install LDdriver from https://www.digiater.nl/downloads/lddriver_v83.zip
> 
>>  LDdriver implements a VMS disk driver mapped to a VMS flat file, a sort
>>  of "virtual disk" utility.
> 
>> 2. Start LDdriver ... $ @SYS$STARTUP:LD$STARTUP
> 
>> 3. If you haven't already done so, connect your 4GB drive to the VAXstation
>>  and initialise and mount it, e.g.
>>     $ INIT/SYS DKA200: BIGDISK
>>     $ MOUNT/SYS DKA200: BIGDISK
> 
>> 4. Create a virtual disk the same size as your DKA100 drive, or bigger:
>>     $ LD CREATE DKA200:[000000]DKA100_IMAGE.DSK /SIZE=4213968
>>  will create a 2GB container file.
> 
>> 5. Then prepare it:
>>     $ LD CONNECT DKA200:[000000]DKA100_IMAGE.DSK LDA1
>>     $ INIT/SYS LDA1: VAXDISK
>>     $ MOUNT/FOREIGN LDA1:
>>     $ BACKUP/IMAGE DKA100: LDA1:/INIT
> 
>> 6. Dismount and disconnect the LD disk
>>     $ DISMOUNT LDA1:
>>     $ LD DISCO LDA1:
> 
>> 7. Transfer the disk image file DKA200:[000000]DKA100_IMAGE.DSK
>>  to your SIMH host, e.g. via FTP in BINARY mode.
> 
>> The disk image created by LD and transferred to your SIMH host is ready for
>> use by SIMH.
> 
>> Regards,
> 
>> 	Jeremy Begg
> 
> 
>>> I tried to run the following:
>>> backup/image/verify dka200: dka100:[000000]20190420-system.sav/sav
>>> 
>>> I ended up with a very strange "No valid storage bitmap found" error, and it
>>> failed to copy anything.
>>> 
>>> Facility: BACKUP, Backup Utility
>>> Explanation: Software bad block data is not present on the volume. The
>>> volume has been initialized with no bad blocks.
>>> User Action: Execute the Bad Block Locator utility before using the volume.
>>> NOBITMAP, no valid storage bitmap found on 'device-name'
>>> 
>>> I tried ANALYZE/MEDIA, but may not have been doing things right.  This is a
>>> Genuine RZ29-VA, but it was originally used as part of a disk array for a Sun
>>> Sparc system.
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