Anyone have experience with Nubus SCSI cards and cloning?

[CMW85]

I have a Nubus hard drive with rare authorizers installed on it. Is there any reason why I shouldn't use a SCSI card in a newer machine to clone the drive and then put it back into a PowerMac 7100? Would it be better to clone the drive in the 7100, with the recipient drive being the same model as the donor? (Would that make a difference in the odds of success?) Would the fact that it's a Nubus SCSI card be a factor in whether the drive is successfully cloned? I read that in general, drives cloned and used in the same system have a rate of about 80% when it comes to retaining authorizations. What is the best Nubus card for cloning drives with authorizers on them? If I can get better odds with a non-Nubus SCSI card under a different computer/OS, which card should I consider? I've never cloned any drives in a Nubus because the cards are quite rare.

 

[cheesestraws]

Is there any reason why I shouldn't use a SCSI card in a newer machine to clone the drive and then put it back into a PowerMac 7100

That'd be what I would try personally.

when it comes to retaining authorizations

There have been so many strategies used to authorise software, it's hard to make a blanket statement about all authorisers.

Personally, I'd suggest the important thing is to get a byte-for-byte image of the entire disc, and a snapshot of all the metadata it is exposing to the MacOS. At that point, you have the freedom to experiment: you can restore onto another drive of the same model, you can attempt to use a ZuluSCSI/MacSD/similar to emulate the precise drive in question, you have more room to manoeuvre without danger of mucking up your original drive.

 

[nyef]

Personally, I'd suggest the important thing is to get a byte-for-byte image of the entire disc, and a snapshot of all the metadata it is exposing to the MacOS. At that point, you have the freedom to experiment: you can restore onto another drive of the same model, you can attempt to use a ZuluSCSI/MacSD/similar to emulate the precise drive in question, you have more room to manoeuvre without danger of mucking up your original drive.

A sector-wise copy of the entire drive is my baseline for imaging hard drives. With a license manager in play, though, I'd be concerned about it checking manufacturer names, models, serial numbers and whatnot on the host system, any network cards, and the drive itself.

If you have any inclination towards software reverse engineering, working out how to "fake out" the authorization check or even how to create your own authorizations could be an interesting project.

 

[cheesestraws]

and the drive itself.

Yeah, this is why I said that you need to dump / make a note of any metadata that the drive presents to the OS.

 

[CMW85]

That'd be what I would try personally.



There have been so many strategies used to authorise software, it's hard to make a blanket statement about all authorisers.

Personally, I'd suggest the important thing is to get a byte-for-byte image of the entire disc, and a snapshot of all the metadata it is exposing to the MacOS. At that point, you have the freedom to experiment: you can restore onto another drive of the same model, you can attempt to use a ZuluSCSI/MacSD/similar to emulate the precise drive in question, you have more room to manoeuvre without danger of mucking up your original drive.

A sector-wise copy of the entire drive is my baseline for imaging hard drives. With a license manager in play, though, I'd be concerned about it checking manufacturer names, models, serial numbers and whatnot on the host system, any network cards, and the drive itself.

If you have any inclination towards software reverse engineering, working out how to "fake out" the authorization check or even how to create your own authorizations could be an interesting project.

@cheesestraws @nyef Thank you both for the suggestions. The person I got the drive from said that they used the Monte method to back up drives. I've read that it involves using FWB toolkit to partition the drive, put the plugins in said partition, and make a bit-copy of it. I'm still not sure if that would work and don't want to risk it. He said he would get back to me with specific instructions when he found his notes.

 

[eharmon]

The best way to get the most accurate clone would be SCSI Initiator mode with a PiSCSI, ZuluSCSI, or BlueSCSI. They'll do an entirely offline (no operating system drivers to do something cute) clone from the disks themselves so you can be assured everything would copy bit-perfect.

If there's any entanglement between the authorizer and the drive beyond that, it's probably checking drive attributes (name, version, serials, etc). You should be able to read those from the drive as well and set them as overrides on the SCSI emulator so they match, if you run into problems with the backup working. (That's what cheesestraws is referencing above)

 

[cheesestraws]

The best way to get the most accurate clone would be SCSI Initiator mode with a PiSCSI, ZuluSCSI, or BlueSCSI. They'll do an entirely offline (no operating system drivers to do something cute) clone from the disks themselves so you can be assured everything would copy bit-perfect.

I keep forgetting this is a thing these days. Great feature. Yes, do this.

 

[CMW85]

The best way to get the most accurate clone would be SCSI Initiator mode with a PiSCSI, ZuluSCSI, or BlueSCSI. They'll do an entirely offline (no operating system drivers to do something cute) clone from the disks themselves so you can be assured everything would copy bit-perfect.

If there's any entanglement between the authorizer and the drive beyond that, it's probably checking drive attributes (name, version, serials, etc). You should be able to read those from the drive as well and set them as overrides on the SCSI emulator so they match, if you run into problems with the backup working. (That's what cheesestraws is referencing above)

That is exactly what I needed to know. Thank you, @eharmon