I still hate Linux! (Linux and Unix backup tapes yet again) - Tech Support Forums

Eli · January 13th, 2002, 12:03 AM

Since no one will remember, I've started a couple of threads at Sysopt in the past about a 486/SCSI based SCO Unix 3.2v4.2 system that's hard drive died, leaving a bunch of backup tapes as orphans. We'd love to get the data off of those tapes so I've been trying various versions of Linux on that system with little results. Most Linux versions hated the EISA SCSI card, and the ones that didn't refused to use their swap partitions. Needless to say my first experiences with Linux weren't fun.

The present: I put together a P200MMX W98 system, IDE hard drive and CD drive. In went a PCI SCSI card, a SCSI hard drive, and the tape drive from the junker box. W98 is happy with the SCSI drive and detects the tape drive. I booted from the CD drive with an older Mandrake 8.0 that I've had lying around and it kept giving I/O errors during the install and I eventually had to just kill it. Just today I downloaded Mandrake 8.1 and made a new CD thinking the 8.0 burn was probably bad. Well this one locks solid when trying to format the SCSI drive. It's detected, it's partitioned (although it did lock up on the first attempt), but it won't format it. No errors of any kind.

Why does Linux hate me so much? I'm really developing a dislike for this OS. Does anyone have any ideas? All I want is the data from these tapes. W98, Linux, Dos, whatever, I don't care how I do it. I'll owe a beer to the person who can help me with these bloody things... Any takers?

OC Guy · January 13th, 2002, 12:16 AM

Maybe your suppose to tell it your using a scsi or pci scsi card when you install. Kinda, maybe like, when you install windows 2000, and at the begining it says press F6 to install or something scsi drivers. (sweet, free beer!)

pbharris · January 13th, 2002, 12:31 AM

ah as much as i hate to say it i do remember that thread...

I have heard linux is temperamental about who it likes... or not.

lemme do some research. I think you may get better results having only the tape drive on the SCSI bus.

storm2k · January 13th, 2002, 03:01 AM

it's ok eli... linux does not like me all that much either... i'm lucky to be in linux right now typing this...

this is my third attempt with linux... if it fails beyond this point, i officially renounce it and will continue to be a windows-only person...

drojman · January 13th, 2002, 03:25 AM

awww, great... and here I sit burning a linux iso as we speak..

CubKid · January 13th, 2002, 04:08 AM

Linux is OK. I prefur Windows because Ive got so much software for it, and I know more about it than I do about Linux.

CMonster · January 13th, 2002, 07:31 AM

Drake 8x has given me plenty of grief too, particularly on installing and support of certain ATAPI CDROM drives, also, floppy disk drives sometimes dissapear or cease to function shortly after install. Drake 7.2 had none of these problems on install. I don't know why the folks at Mandrake could include so much improvement and yet break things that previously worked perfectly.

SuSE 7.2 worked exceptionally well for me but lacked a little in USB support and features in Yast2 hardware. SuSE 7.3 installs every bit as well as the previous version and includes many of the latest features, apps, and updates, but has broken some things when it comes to printing and also fonts (worked perfectly in 7.2 -go figure); printing from "Kword" produces garbage in SuSE 7.3 and it will not print from a fresh install of Star Office 6 (yeah SO6 is beta but it prints fine when used in Drake 7.2/8.1, Redhat 7.1, or SuSE 7.2 on the same hardware). I sometimes wonder if any testing is done at all on these new releases of Linux - I guess these Linux companies better pay more attention to the emails from beta testers.

Is Linux ready to replace your Windows desktops - probably not - drop it, kick it to the curb, no love lost there.

'..These aren't the droids we're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along...'

kcrispin3 · January 13th, 2002, 07:57 AM

i can only think of one way to solve that problem, and 1) a lot of it is based on theory 2) not sure if this will work at all and 3) its going to cost a lot in money, or a lot in the morals department. ANd i have seen this thread before too.

Here goes. Assuming that windows works perfectly with all drives in question. Obtain and install VMWARE on windows. Create a virtual workstation and have it configured to accept Linux, and see if you can tweak teh hardware configuration so that the virtual workstation will virtualize all those scsi drives as ide drives attached to a ide controll on mobo. That way when linux installs on that virtual workstation, it will think those scsi drives are ide drives.

Lookin back on that last paragraph, i dont even know if it is possible to do such, but it might, and its a slim chance. You might be able to get away with this with just the VMWARE trial version that you can download from www.vmware.com

Eli · January 13th, 2002, 03:19 PM

It'll go through to the point where I have to partition the drives just fine. Both hda and sda are present. I set up the partitions on sda and... crash. Okay, reboot and try again. The new partitions are intact, great. Format them and... crash. Whoever said Linux was easy must really hate Microsoft.

It doesn't give any errors at all, and it seems to detect the SCSI bus without complaints. I can format and benchmark the SCSI hard drive in Windows (booting from the IDE drive), again with no complaints. Should I ditch the IDE setup and try SCSI only? Or maybe try to install on an IDE hard drive (Of course, I'd have to find another one). I'm not kidding, so far I genuinely hate this OS.

I've tried three versions of Mandrake, at least one of Redhat, and a version of Slackware. A growing collection of Linux CDs that I'm finding are totally useless...

Any chance these tapes could be accessed from Windows? Y'know, a useable operating system? Thanks guys.

kcrispin3 · January 13th, 2002, 05:21 PM

hmm, there must be some software setting or some sort of incorrect addressing that linux is trying to use with that scsi setup
hey, out of the blue, and i am sure you have metnioned this million of times by now, what scsi card or controller do you have?

as for using windows to extract the data, with the default software around, i dont think you can, but try a google search or something for "read ext2fs in windows" or something.. hwoever its more likely that filesystem was native to whatever OS that data used to be on.. SCO unix right?

see if you can find out what filesystems SCO unix used and then replace that goodle search with " read <filesystem> data in windows"

another idea is if your card doesnt have much support, then i would try getting a cheap older ADAPTEC scsi host adaptor, like the 2906 and hooking your drives to that. Last time i looked that particular host adaptor was 35 bucks.