TiVo Community Forums Archives - Backup to SCSI Drives on an XP computer?

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Backup to SCSI Drives on an XP computer?
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Posted by: Hey_Hey

I'm about ready to start upgrading my dual drive DSR6K. I'm going to put two 120G WD 5400 drives in. I don't need to save my recordings. My problem is that the computer I need to use for this runs XP and only has SCSI drives in it. I do have spare room to create a FAT partition on one of the SCSI drives.

Can the MFSTools Boot CD see the SCSI drives? Can I backup my TiVo drives directly to the FAT partition on the SCSI drives? (Or do I need to get another IDE drive just for the backup?)

Posted by: kazymyr

Odds are, it'll work. There is a fair number of scsi drivers on the CD, but the catch is you have to install them manually, using insmod <drivername>. You have to browse the scsi directory in /lib/modules for the correct driver, if you don't know the name. For example, for my Advansys board I'd use the advansys.o module. Then you can mount the partitions on the scsi disk using the conventions for scsi drives naming in Linux (/dev/sda1, sda2, etc.). And of course the warning about NTFS partitions applies (as you say you have XP).

Note: recent Adaptec boards, which you probably have, are supported by the aic7xxx driver. Just in case the names are too confusing. If you need help, post here with the exact model of your scsi board and the partition layout.

Posted by: Hey_Hey

I have an Adaptec 2940UW board. I have 3 SCSI drives, 2 are taken up entirely by 1 NTFS partition each. The 3rd one (actually it's the "middle" of the 3 disks in the XP disk admin window) has one small NTFS partition, and then a lot of free space where I can create the FAT partition I need for the backup.

I assume I should create the FAT partition from XP. Then boot from the CD, and do the insmod aic7xxx?

I'm not sure what the warning about the NTFS partition is? I assume I can't access them from Linux, but is there something else I have to be careful of?

Posted by: Robert S

I don't think the boot CDs can see SCSI devices. If you're using MFS Tools 2 you don't need byte-swapping so try an ordinary Linux system like Tom's Root and Boot Disk (which I assume has some SCSI support).

You will need a FAT partition as although Linux can read NTFS partitions, it can't write to them.

And, of course, if XP boots with a TiVo drive attached the drive will be corrupted, so you might want to disconnect your XP primary drive.

Posted by: kazymyr

quote:
Originally posted by Hey_Hey
I have an Adaptec 2940UW board. I have 3 SCSI drives, 2 are taken up entirely by 1 NTFS partition each. The 3rd one (actually it's the "middle" of the 3 disks in the XP disk admin window) has one small NTFS partition, and then a lot of free space where I can create the FAT partition I need for the backup.

I assume I should create the FAT partition from XP. Then boot from the CD, and do the insmod aic7xxx?

I'm not sure what the warning about the NTFS partition is? I assume I can't access them from Linux, but is there something else I have to be careful of?

Correct, aic7xxx for newer Adaptec boards. Not having ever used one myself, I can't give more details. The aic7xxx.o module is present on the CD. Creating the fat32 partition fron XP should be OK. Other than not being writable from Linux, there's no other problem with NTFS partitions, don't worry.

Now, to be able to mount the fat32 partition, you need to know its name. The naming of scsi drives in Linux is as follows: from the one with the lowest scsi ID to the highest scsi ID, they're named: /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, dev/sdc, etc. The partitions on each drive will be numbered: sda1, sda2, etc. (...sdb1, sdb2, ..., sdc1, sdc2, ... ). Basically, you'll have to look for the correct partition using a tool such as cfdisk (cfdisk /dev/sda, cfdisk /dev/sdb, etc. ). Or you can infer the name of the partition if you know the scsi IDs of your drives. If it's really the "middle" drive, i.e. it hasn't the highest or lowest scsi ID, it'll be /dev/sdb, and if you create an "extended" fat32 partition from XP, it'll most likely be /dev/sdb5 (Windows convention...). When you find it, you can mount it as you would any fat32 partition on a IDE drive, and use it to store the backup just the same. Post back if it worked.

Posted by: Hey_Hey

I didn't get a chance to try my upgrade until today, but it seems it was successful (at least so far) and I had no trouble at all with the SCSI drives in my PC.

After reading more here, I was scared off of the mfstools 2 stuff, and just used the original version, using nuboot6.iso to burn the boot CD.

Turns out this image automatically loaded the Adaptec SCSI drivers and /dev/sdb was there and ready to be used at bootup. I just did mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/dos and followed the rest of the hinsdale instructions without incident.

Now I just have to find 225 hours worth of TV to fill my drives!

Thanks for the help, not being linux-aware it may have taken me awhile to discover that the SCSI drives were /dev/sdX.