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Any way to bypass a password login in CompuPro Concurrent DOS?
- Thread starter jmetal88
- Start date
Actually, I might take a different approach. Since I have it hooked up to a PC instead of a dumb terminal anyway, I am thinking it might be worth trying to set up some software to brute force the log-in. Then once I am running I can figure out whether my disk drives are usable.
It seems to be loading the boot loader reliably now, but the boot loader is just not continuing to load the OS. I fear I may be out of luck unless I can locate the original disks for this machine.
If you are booting from a CompuPro CDOS master disk, the first thing that happens is the "OS loader" is read from the disk and run. Next, the "OS loader" sends a prompt to the console for the operator to enter the name of the CCPM.SYS file to be loaded. The .SYS file choice depends on the floppy and hard drive configuration of the system. Do you get far enough into the boot process to see the prompt for a .SYS file name, or does the system hang before that?
If you are booting from a CompuPro CDOS master disk, the first thing that happens is the "OS loader" is read from the disk and run. Next, the "OS loader" sends a prompt to the console for the operator to enter the name of the CCPM.SYS file to be loaded. The .SYS file choice depends on the floppy and hard drive configuration of the system. Do you get far enough into the boot process to see the prompt for a .SYS file name, or does the system hang before that?
It says something like "CompuPro 10 CCPM Floppy Loader ver. 1.1" and hangs immediately afterward. I tried pressing some keys after that but no characters showed up on screen.
EDIT: You now have me wondering, though, if I might see a different prompt if I hooked up to one of the other three serial ports.
EDIT 2: Nah, nothing at all on the other ports.
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I'm trying out my brute force login idea now. It doesn't seem like there are any ready-made utilities to do something like this, but I did find some people who had been trying similar things to get into routers by stringing together a few Linux utilities. I've got one going, but I'm going to have to get creative with the script if the user name isn't something as obvious as "admin" or "user" because the guide I followed assumed you'd know the user name already.
I'm trying out my brute force login idea now. It doesn't seem like there are any ready-made utilities to do something like this, but I did find some people who had been trying similar things to get into routers by stringing together a few Linux utilities. I've got one going, but I'm going to have to get creative with the script if the user name isn't something as obvious as "admin" or "user" because the guide I followed assumed you'd know the user name already.
Well, I think I've given up on this already. It could take days, weeks, or months to hit the right combination doing it this way.
I'm going to try the Teledisk images again, but writing from an older computer.
EDIT: Same result. These disks should boot on my machine, but they just don't for some reason.
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Ah, I just traced out part of the circuit on the floppy controller -- those drive select pulses I was seeing on the 8" were actually for drive select 3 and 4! The card is hard-wired to remap DS3 and DS4 after demultiplexing from the 8272 to DS1 and DS2 at the 8" drive. Obviously the computer wants to boot off DS1, so I will need to re-wire if I want it to actually try detecting something in the 8" drive.
Ah, I just traced out part of the circuit on the floppy controller -- those drive select pulses I was seeing on the 8" were actually for drive select 3 and 4! The card is hard-wired to remap DS3 and DS4 after demultiplexing from the 8272 to DS1 and DS2 at the 8" drive. Obviously the computer wants to boot off DS1, so I will need to re-wire if I want it to actually try detecting something in the 8" drive.
Ah, nuts. I re-wired the drive select and it is now loading the head to attempt to read the disk, but the heads are not seeking. Another quick inspection of the signals coming out of the 8" drive seems to indicate my Track 0 sensor is bad. I don't know if I can rig up a replacement with parts I have on hand or not.
Ah, nuts. I re-wired the drive select and it is now loading the head to attempt to read the disk, but the heads are not seeking. Another quick inspection of the signals coming out of the 8" drive seems to indicate my Track 0 sensor is bad. I don't know if I can rig up a replacement with parts I have on hand or not.
Managed to get it working with a sensor out of a spare 5.25" drive I had sitting around. I'm now pretty confident that it won't boot off the 8" due to a data rate mismatch. I wish I had a way to determine whether the heads are functioning properly, but all I can say is that there is a waveform on the read pin when the heads load (and is present on the 8272, so it's not being gated off improperly). The heads keep loading and unloading just like the QD drive did when it couldn't read the disk I gave it originally.
If you have access to (someone who has) David Gesswein's MFM emulator, you could write the harddisk to a file and search for the aforementioned password file in the harddisk dump.
To make any sense of the "hard disk dump" you would have to know how data on the drive was written by the drive controller and the operating system. If the design of the hard drive controller for the CompuPro 10+ was based on the one used in its S100 systems, the controller design and the low level format was proprietary. The method used by CompuPro to "partition" the drive was coded into the CDOS XIOS. If one did succeed in retrieving the data from that one specific file, you would then have to decrypt its contents to retrieve the password. All of this is possible of course, but would require a formidable amount of work.
I just looked at the 10 Plus CCPM disk images in a hex editor and apparently they are version 3.1. I know you had said that I probably wouldn't be able to read my drive with version 3.1, do you think that's too old to even boot on my system? That could explain the behavior I'm seeing where it locks up after the floppy loader I suppose. If it should still boot, then the images are either damaged or I'm doing something wrong in the writing process.
I just looked at the 10 Plus CCPM disk images in a hex editor and apparently they are version 3.1. I know you had said that I probably wouldn't be able to read my drive with version 3.1, do you think that's too old to even boot on my system? That could explain the behavior I'm seeing where it locks up after the floppy loader I suppose. If it should still boot, then the images are either damaged or I'm doing something wrong in the writing process.
If these are images of CCPM for the 10+ they should at least allow you to boot up your system, even if they are v3.1 .
If these are images of CCPM for the 10+ they should at least allow you to boot up your system, even if they are v3.1 .
The website I got them from says they are for the 10 Plus.
The boot text on the disk itself does not include the "Plus" though.
If you don't mind me asking... which web site did you find these disk images on?
http://www.retroarchive.org/maslin/disks/compupro/
Well, if I ever run across a working disk image, apparently the floppy drive that's in my 386 writes floppies that the QD drive can read (at least the boot sector of anyway) so that will probably be my first choice to make another disk should I run across a newer disk image.
I copied both images you obtained there, and took a look at the file contents on my system. Indeed it does appear to be a full master set of CCP/M system files for the CompuPro 10. The only thing I can't do is verify the boot track is functional on the image, although inspection of the data on Track:0 Side:0 Sector:1 does show the characters "CompuPro Floppy Disk loader version 1.1".
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I copied both images you obtained there, and took a look at the file contents on my system. Indeed it does appear to be a full master set of CCP/M system files for the CompuPro 10. The only thing I can't do is verify the boot track is functional on the image, although inspection of the data on Track:0 Side:0 Sector:1 does show the characters "CompuPro Floppy Disk loader version 1.1".
Yep, the Floppy Disk Loader text appears in my terminal when I try to boot the disk. But the computer refuses to continue loading afterward.
Well, until I figure out a solution for the machine itself, I guess I will go with my original plan for the 8" drive, which was to build an adapter to interface with my PC so I can image the CompuPro disks myself (I just bought the CompuPro because I thought it'd be fun to experience the OS on its original hardware -- I'm not terribly upset because I bought the machine expecting it to possibly be broken anyway, but once I saw it booting I did not expect it would be this much of a pain to get anything running).