Archive A/UX hard drive from a IIfx

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Hi all - my recently resurrected IIfx came with a 210MB SCSI Hard Drive running A/UX. As suggested by @ilitch64 I'd like to archive the drive in case there's something interesting on there. Can anyone give me advice on

How I can do the archiving and what software would i need? I could hook the drive up to a PM 7500 running 8.1 and copy to its hard drive or I could boot the IIfx off a BlueSCSI running 7.1 (assuming this would work, haven't tried yet) and copy to SD

Where should I upload the archive?

Anything else I should know?

Thx!

 

[Phipli]

Where should I upload the archive?

Nowhere at first. Backup as soon as possible, but take your time to upload so you can check for private files. No what enthusiastic people say

 

[Phipli]

How I can do the archiving and what software would i need? I could hook the drive up to a PM 7500 running 8.1 and copy to its hard drive or I could boot the IIfx off a BlueSCSI running 7.1 (assuming this would work, haven't tried yet) and copy to SD

Do you have any MacOS X machines that have 50pin SCSI? It's important to image everything, not just the stuff visible from normal Classic Mac OS.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Fair point @Phipli . There's nothing on the Mac volume but I have no idea how to check the A/UX volume without a valid password. The Guest access still requires a password.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Do you have any MacOS X machines that have 50pin SCSI? It's important to image everything, not just the stuff visible from normal Classic Mac OS.

Unfortunately no.

 

[Phipli]

The Guest access still requires a password.

Not from the correct host OS. OSX will probably show the contents of the AUX partitions.

 

[Phipli]

Unfortunately no.

Not a Beige G3 down the back of the sofa?

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Not a Beige G3 down the back of the sofa?

Just checked. Yes to tabby cat behind sofa, no to Biege G3.

 

[cheesestraws]

Yeah, ideally you need a UNIXy box (be that A/UX or a modern UNIX) with 50 pin SCSI.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

So if I jump down a rabbit hole and get an A/UX boot volume on the IIfx using the BlueSCSI then there's a viable path forward?

 

[cheesestraws]

Yes, if you get a fresh A/UX installation you will be able to do it.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Copy that, I will endeavor to do so. And honestly having A/UX running on a IIfx is kinda cool anyway

 

[Andy]

BlueSCSI supports a mode where you can plug a hard drive directly into it and it'll automatically image the drive. https://bluescsi.com/docs/Initiator-Mode That will give you a full image with partition table intact and will allow you to bypass reading the a/ux filesystem on a Mac. I haven't tried it myself but it looks pretty straight forward. Probably the best place to ask for assistance with that is their discord, there's a link on the troubleshooting page.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Ooo interesting will research that thanks @Andy!

 

[SteveHere]

You'll want to use the latest BlueSCSI V2 full sized "Desktop" version (the external and laptop versions don't have the required header pin jumpers) and the latest firmware. Older firmware had some issues as documented in this video from Adrian's Digital Basement ][...

The video comments indicate that these issues have been fixed in the latest firmware. Let us know how it goes!

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

@SteveHere appreciate that, however I only have a BlueSCSI 1.0-b. Guess back to the A/UX boot on IIfx path.

 

[MacKilRoy]

I can’t remember what version supports it, but newer versions of the FWB Hard Disk Toolkit (perhaps 3.0+, maybe 4.5) can save an image of an entire drive as a file, which can be restored back to another drive. I think it essentially does a ‘dd’.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

I had the same usecase with a HDD extracted from a faulty SE.
I did a perfect image (like with 'dd') using DiskCopy 6.5b which is able to image a complete device (used for Apple Restoration Tool).
Later, I booted from a Tiger install CD to make a 'dd' image and the result was the same as DiskCopy.

 

[MacKilRoy]

I had the same usecase with a HDD extracted from a faulty SE.
I did a perfect image (like with 'dd') using DiskCopy 6.5b which is able to image a complete device (used for Apple Restoration Tool).
Later, I booted from a Tiger install CD to make a 'dd' image and the result was the same as DiskCopy.

Oh, interesting! I wasn’t aware DiskCopy could do a device image. I’ve only ever used 6.3.3 as the highest version.

 

[zefrenchtoon]

Oh, interesting! I wasn’t aware DiskCopy could do a device image. I’ve only ever used 6.3.3 as the highest version.

As said on the garden page:

DL #9's and #10: Disk Copy 6.5b11 and b13; These are two non-released beta versions of Disk Copy 6.5.
These can access some uncompressed .dmg and .cdr formats. — Both require a PPC Mac OS 9.1 or newer.

".cdr" is related to the device image feature IIRC

Be careful of the compatibility with MacOS 9.1 min