Image a Unix Hard drive

[Electromechanical30]

Hello all,

I have quite a few older industrial computer consoles that run a unix style OS. The problem is the hard drives are starting to fail. We are looking into replacing the existing hard drives (2 GB) with an IDE compact falsh drive. How can I go about getting the original hard drive image onto the CF while using a PC with Win XP Pro? I did look into some of the software on The Free Country's website, but I couldn't get the bootable CD to work...?

I do have all of the required hardware... i.e. USB to IDE converter and USB CF drive...

I'm probably missing something simple... Any web links and / or other info is greatly appriciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[xwb]

I couldn't get the bootable CD to work...?

Do you mean
1) You cannot get it to boot from CD - any CD: not just the one you made up
2) You cannot get it to boot from the CD you made.

Case 1: the bootable drive must be a primary drive. Most controllers nowadays take 4 drives: 2 primary and 2 secondary. If you have a hard disk and a CD, the hard disk will be on one primary but the CD could be on anything.

Case 2: you need to make the CD bootable. Follow the instructions in

http://www.bootdisk.com/nero.htm

 

[johnwm]

Boot sequence is determined in your CMOS settings. Depending on your BIOS you need to hit F8 or Delete key during the cold boot sequence. When you get into CMOS setup just select the CD drive to be the first boot device - can be primary or secondary on either IDE channel

Good Luck
johnwm
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[richs]

Hiya-

Please note that some configurations of 'nix have their swap space on the hard drive. If I remember correctly, compact flash has a large but limited number of write cycles before failure.

I strongly suggest that you check for this condition for the particular 'nix that you are running. If so, then there might be a problem using CF.

Best wishes,

Rich S.

 

[Electromechanical30]

OK... I did get my CD to work. The problem was with the way I burnt the CD. I needed to burn as an .iso image.

This is what I have for Hard Drive info... The physical HDD is a standard Western Digital 2GB. In the CMOS set up it is set as a user defined type. 1024 cyl, 14 head, 17 sector, 120MB. The OS is QNX.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong... Pulling the image from one drive should carry over that partition's image to the other...correct?

 

[MikeHalloran]

First thing I'd do is ask QNX. They must have solved your problem already.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[xwb]

Interesting article in

http://www.qnx.com/developers/qnx4/qnx4kb/solution.html?code=9531

May or may not help but it looks like they just copy the disk over the network.