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Date:      Mon, 24 Jun 1996 13:12:16 +0200 (MET DST)
From:      "Georg-W. Koltermann" <gwk@racer.dkrz.de>
To:        abladtn@autelca.ascom.ch
Cc:        gilles.tschopp@aletsch.esis.vsnet.ch, scsi@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: How to use Syquest EZ-135 as backup drive ?
Message-ID:  <199606241112.NAA11225@racer.dkrz.de>
In-Reply-To: <31CE34F6.794BDF32@autelca.ascom.ch> (message from Norbert Bladt on Mon, 24 Jun 1996 08:25:58 %2B0200)

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>>>>> "Norbert" == Norbert Bladt <abladtn@autelca.ascom.ch> writes:
    Norbert>  Georg-W. Koltermann wrote:
    >>  >>>>> "Gilles" == Gilles Tschopp
    >> <gilles.tschopp@aletsch.esis.vsnet.ch> writes:
    Gilles> Hello, I'm an beginner of the Unix world. I would like to
    Gilles> know how to manage backup of my FreeBSD system with the
    Gilles> TAR command. I have a Syquest EZ-135 plugged on the SCSI
    Gilles> subsystem. How to do ?
    Gilles> 
    Gilles> A lot of thanks.
    Gilles> 
    Gilles> Gilles Tschopp.
    Gilles> ******************************************* Gilles
    Gilles> Tschopp, Informaticien de gestion ES
    Gilles> gilles.tschopp@esis.vsnet.ch http://icare.itech.ch
    Gilles> http://esis.vsnet.ch http://www.vsnet.ch
    Gilles> *******************************************
    Gilles> 
    Gilles> 
    >>  Try cd /someplace
    Norbert> This is OK.
    >> tar cvfb /dev/rst0 126 somefiles
    Norbert> This is a bad idea and a wrong answer, too.  I think that
    Norbert> the EZ-135 is not a tape drive and therefore it is not
    Norbert> detected as "rst0" !  Instead it will be some sort of
    Norbert> harddisk.

Ouch!!  Thank god it's not a scanner.  I wouldn't know how to backup
to a scanner...

I realized when I sent out my first reply that there wasn't much
information from Gilles' original question.  I only wanted to give him
a quick hint without going too much into details--he mentioned being a
newbie.  I simply picked the most probable case, and hoped he would
come back to me if he got 'no such device or address'.

If this thing *is* a disk, and Gilles is a newbie, he'll probably have
a hard time to get it disklabel(8)'ed and newfs'ed.  I think the
easiest route for him would then be to

	a) Unplug any SCSI disks that might be in use, except for the
	   EZ-135.  This is for safety, so that any subsequent
	   mistakes will not wipe out system files.

	b) Start FreeBSD installation, selecting FLOPPY as
	   installation medium (only the boot disk will actually be
	   needed).

	c) Select the EZ-135 as the target for the install.  In the
	   FDISK menu create a FreeBSD slice spanning the whole disk.
	   In the disklabel menu create at least one dummy partition
	   for the root filesystem.  That's the minimum to let the
	   install program continue, I believe.

	d) When the install program continues, it will disklabel the
	   EZ-135.  It will continue some more and ask for the root
	   floppy.  At this point the installation can be aborted
	   (actually it could even be aborted right after the
	   disklabel step, but let's be sure and wait a little bit).

	e) Reconnect the devices from a).  Boot as usual, watching
	   the SCSI probe messages and take note which "sdX" the
	   EZ-135 is.

	f) Check the /dev directory for an entry for the "sdX"
	   (substitute actual unit number for X) found during the
	   probe.  Both the basic "sdX" and the "sdX{a,b,c...}"
	   partitions should be there.  If they aren't, run "MAKDEDEV
	   sdXa" while in the /dev directory.

It should now be possible to access the EZ-135.  The whole volume will
be /dev/sdXc.  Any partitions created in c) would be usable also, if
one desires to subdivide the unit.

The remaining steps depend on the backup tools used: Tar could write
directly to the device or any partitions (the "raw" device or
partitions /dev/rsdXy  would be preferred for tar).  In order to use
cp(1), one would need to run newfs(8) on the device or partition
first, and then mount(8) it.

Georg-W. Koltermann, gwk@cray.com



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