I'm trying to read data off two HDs removed from a Perkin-Elmer OS/32
system. I'm using an Adaptec 2940AU card, and an inexpensive program
called DiskSpy from www.miray.de. This setup works fine when I use it
to examine an old Macintosh disk, a PC-formatted JAZ cartridge, or a
Sun Solaris HD. It fails when I try to read the OS/32 disks. The 
Adaptec correctly prints out the mfr's ID string during boot, but
DiskSpy never shows the OS/32 HDs in its list of drives found (it lists
only the PC's internal IDE HD).

The only difference I see is that the OS/32 disks have been formatted
with 256-byte sectors (according to the P-E docs). Can the Adaptec read
and write drives with 256-byte sectors? If it can, I'll write the authors
of DiskSpy and see if they can fix their app to support sector sizes 
other than 512. (Or abandon DiskSpy and get something better...) If it
can't, there's no point in trying to fix the software. (Are there PC-
compatible SCSI adapters that can read HDs with oddball sector sizes?)

The disks in question are a Fujitsu M2932SAU and a Seagate ST32550N.
The 2940AU's firmware is v1.34.2. DiskSpy is the "SCSI Professional" 
version.

-- 

 Kai Lanz   lanz@pangea.stanford.edu   School of Earth Sciences   650 723-3400

"Kai Lanz" <lanz@pangea.Stanford.EDU> wrote in message 
news:d4bfvq$83b$1@news.Stanford.EDU...
>
> I'm trying to read data off two HDs removed from a Perkin-Elmer OS/32
> system. I'm using an Adaptec 2940AU card, and an inexpensive program
> called DiskSpy from www.miray.de. This setup works fine when I use it
> to examine an old Macintosh disk, a PC-formatted JAZ cartridge, or a
> Sun Solaris HD. It fails when I try to read the OS/32 disks. The
> Adaptec correctly prints out the mfr's ID string during boot, but
> DiskSpy never shows the OS/32 HDs in its list of drives found (it lists
> only the PC's internal IDE HD).
>
> The only difference I see is that the OS/32 disks have been formatted
> with 256-byte sectors (according to the P-E docs). Can the Adaptec read
> and write drives with 256-byte sectors? If it can, I'll write the authors
> of DiskSpy and see if they can fix their app to support sector sizes
> other than 512. (Or abandon DiskSpy and get something better...) If it
> can't, there's no point in trying to fix the software. (Are there PC-
> compatible SCSI adapters that can read HDs with oddball sector sizes?)
>
> The disks in question are a Fujitsu M2932SAU and a Seagate ST32550N.
> The 2940AU's firmware is v1.34.2. DiskSpy is the "SCSI Professional"
> version.
>
> -- 
>
> Kai Lanz   lanz@pangea.stanford.edu   School of Earth Sciences   650 
> 723-3400
>

The adapter has no limitations as far as transferring 256 bytes. It's very 
well possible that your program just doesn't anticipate other sector sizes 
than 512 bytes. If you want to try real quick, boot a Linux CD distro 
(knoppix, ubuntu) and try to read from the disks using the raw device entry 
and the block size. Something like 'dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null bs=256'. 
This should read the entire disk and discard the data. If that works, or if 
you have a full Linux system available, you could try to set the output to a 
real file and end up with a 2GB image that is accessible with any file 
editor.

Rob

Kai Lanz <lanz@pangea.stanford.edu> kenjka:
> I'm trying to read data off two HDs removed from a Perkin-Elmer OS/32
> system. I'm using an Adaptec 2940AU card, and an inexpensive program
> called DiskSpy from www.miray.de. This setup works fine when I use it
> to examine an old Macintosh disk, a PC-formatted JAZ cartridge, or a
> Sun Solaris HD. It fails when I try to read the OS/32 disks. The 
> Adaptec correctly prints out the mfr's ID string during boot, but
> DiskSpy never shows the OS/32 HDs in its list of drives found (it lists
> only the PC's internal IDE HD).

If you're using Windows, I believe that's the problem... AFAIK, disks
formatted as 512byte/sector are visible in DOS/Windows... Try to use some
UNIX with that stuff...

But, again, Sun formatted drives are suspicious, because they could be
formatted with strange byte/sector architecture (so far I've heard
something like 2060 byte/sector, or similar, can't remember)...

> The only difference I see is that the OS/32 disks have been formatted
> with 256-byte sectors (according to the P-E docs). Can the Adaptec read
> and write drives with 256-byte sectors? If it can, I'll write the authors
> of DiskSpy and see if they can fix their app to support sector sizes 
> other than 512. (Or abandon DiskSpy and get something better...) If it
> can't, there's no point in trying to fix the software. (Are there PC-
> compatible SCSI adapters that can read HDs with oddball sector sizes?)

I've found out that strangely formatted HD's on my old SCSI controller were
having different capacity according to sector size... Hmmmm???

-- 
Na rijeckom stadionu se svakih 15 minuta bodljikav
skripta iz osnovao izbacuje.  By runf

                                  Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
                                  a member of hr.comp.hardver FAQ-team