IBM P70 386 DBA disk - any msdos disk clone software?

[jc179]

Hi,
I have a P70 with a working DBA disk, and a McIDE card setup inside.
I would like to clone the DBA disk to the IDE drive, and have tried my trusty Norton Ghost 6, and it just hard locks on starting it ( have tried with also bypassing all startup files).
The machine is a 386, and has 8 mb of ram. I tried a few versions of toms root boot disk (thinking to just use dd), but it seems the kernel is too new, or something else is being picky on it and it also fails to boot.

The drive has many partitions and a dual boot setup with Os2, I'd like to retain that, and while I can probably xcopy / sys it, a sector by sector or similar copy would be nice to do.

Given the drive is a DBA, I can't just plug it into anything else I have here... Are there any other software options out there I'm not aware of ?

thanks,
Jonathan

 

[jafir]

There are much older versions of ghost that will probably work. I used one to make an image of a hard card that was in a Compaq deskpro. I think it was a 2.x version of ghost. So it seems to work with as old as an 8086.

Post in thread 'Disk imaging software for MS-Dos / Win95?'

Aug 4, 2019

Ghost will easily fit on a floppy. It would even let you image over a parallel, serial, or Ethernet connection.

I’ve used it with a hardcard recently, writing the image of it to an XT-ide:

• jafir

Since it’s a 386, you might also be able to use an ancient version of Linux on a floppy disks, like Slackware maybe. Then use dd to copy from one drive to the other. Of course that won’t fix partition sizes, etc.

 

[jc179]

Ah ok thanks, I'll have a look for that older version of ghost!
....and I thought the version I had already was ancient! lol.

thanks
Jonathan

 

[Al Kossow]

Tubetime discovered that there are hidden tracks in a partition not accessible normally
at least in the case of the DBA drives in Thinkpads that are only accessible during POST
I have no idea if this is also true for other IBM drives.

 

[jc179]

thanks for the suggestions.
I was able to image the drive with ghost 2.0.7, and I also happened to try 'Quarterdeck DiskClone Extra Strength 1.0' which completed the image as well.

Not sure about the hidden tracks on a P70 either, I guess we're gonna find out. I will try writing the image back at some point to a disk and see how it goes...

thanks,
Jonathan

 

[ardent-blue]

Tubetime discovered that there are hidden tracks in a partition not accessible normally
at least in the case of the DBA drives in Thinkpads that are only accessible during POST
I have no idea if this is also true for other IBM drives.

The 700/720 Thinkpads [9552] use IML, so they do have a hidden partition [viewable under NT4, BTW...].

Not sure if "individual tracks" are hidden. With SCSI systems, IML uses a "hidden" partition which starts 3MB from the absolute end of the drive. If you need help getting to sleep, System Partition and IML is what you want.

To be pedantic, [WBST guide me!] the only known PS/2s that use DBA-ESDI to hold an IML partition [system partition] are the Model 9552 [7x0 series ThinkPads] and the EARLY dual DBA-ESDI Type 0 Model 90 [8590-402].

The other DBA-ESDI based systems are ROM-based. 8550z, 8555, 8570, 8573.

 

[ardent-blue]

P70 with a working DBA disk... The drive has many partitions and a dual boot setup with Os2, I'd like to retain that, and while I can probably xcopy / sys it, a sector by sector or similar copy would be nice to do.

OS/2 has the Dual Boot, and this is different than IML. Outside of my focus... IIRC [and I probably don't...] the Dual Boot is in a specific partition that is NOT shared with IML.

Luigi30 could probably pin your ears back with a thorough [and correct!] explanation of the Dual Boot partition -AND- operation...

List of partition types. The human-friendly column is on the RIGHT.

 

[Al Kossow]

thanks! I just remember Eric pulling his hair out over trying to figure out the disk weirdness when he was working on the IML emulator

 

[ardent-blue]

Setup and Benchmarks of Several ESDI Hard Disks and Controller Cards by Wolfgang Gehl
Learn Something Old Every Day, Part V: Early IBM PS/2 Hard Disks by Michal Necasek
How It Works -- CHS Translation Plus BIOS Types, LBA and Other Good Stuff by Hale Landis

I was minding my own business when someone [you know who you are] wanted to run DBA-ESDI on the ST-506 based 8550-021. Now, I ignored the 8550 systems, though I had a few 8570s and 8573-P70s with DBA-ESDI. Turns out the 60MB DBA-ESDI update for the 8550-021 has the EPROMs and logic needed to load DBA-ESDI support into the 8550-021.

Based on a message from Wolfgang, IBM was busy developing a successor to ST-506. DBA-ESDI uses MFM RLL 2.7, with some goodies from actual ESDI thrown in. There is not a whole heckuva lot of documentation on the DBA-ESDI, but the interface document is available [please, stop applauding...]. The PS/1 fixed disk material [pages 339-362] looks ST-506ish. Plenty of full-bore ESDI documentation.

Cylinders abound. Data Area, CE Cylinder, then three more cylinders. Haven't got an idea yet where the DBA-ESDI stores manufacturing info. This makes me positively nostalgic for the IML partition on SCSI-based PS/2s.

 

[ardent-blue]

Huh.

<http://www.uruk.org/orig-grub/PC_partitioning.txt>

* CE Cylinder - Customer Engineering cylinder. This is the
last cylinder in P-CHS mode. IBM has always reserved this
cylinder for use of disk diagnostic programs. Many BIOS do
not account for it correctly. It is of questionable value
these days and probably should be considered obsolete.

>> However, since there is no industry wide agreement, beware.
There is no CE Cylinder reserved in the L-CHS address. Also
beware of diagnostic programs that don't realize they are
operating in L-CHS mode and think that the last L-CHS cylinder
is the CE Cylinder.<<

* CHS - Cylinder/Head/Sector. This is the traditional way to
address sectors on a disk. There are at least two types
of CHS addressing: the CHS that is used at the INT 13H
interface and the CHS that is used at the ATA device
interface.

>>In the MFM/RLL/ESDI and early ATA days the CHS
used at the INT 13H interface was the same as the CHS used at
the device interface.<<

* FDPT - Fixed Disk Parameter Table - This table returns
additional information for BIOS drive numbers 80H and 81H.
The FDPT for BIOS drive 80H is pointed to by INT 41H. The
FDPT for BIOS drive 81H is pointed to by INT 46H. A FDPT does
not have a AxH signature byte. This table format returns a
single set of CHS information. The L-CHS information returned
by this table is probably the same as the P-CHS and is also
probably the same as the L-CHS returned by INT 13H AH=08H.

>>However, not all BIOS properly account for the IBM defined CE
cylinder and this can cause a one or two cylinder difference
between the number of cylinders returned in the AH=08H data
and the FDPT data. IBM gets the credit for the original
definition of this type of table.<<

 

[ardent-blue]

DASD Storage Interface Specification Micro Channel one of the very few actual IBM DBA-ESDI documentation that exists.

Starts on page 69

File Format
The files format is subdivided into the following areas:

1. Data Area [Cylinder 0 up to start of CE Cylinder]
2. Spare Cylinder [last cylinder minus 4]
3. CE Cylinder [last cylinder minus 3]
4. Secondary Defect Map [last cylinder minus 2]
5. Primary Defect Map [last cylinder minus 1]
6. Factory-format Defect List [last cylinder]

Data Area
The data area is the first and largest area on the drive. It begins on cylinder 0, head 0, sector 0, and continues up to the CE cylinder (although not all of this area may be used see below).

NOTE: The Spare Cylinder is used to make up for defects in the Data Area. It is writable, and MUST be below the CE Cylinder.

Spare Cylinder
The Spare cylinder is the last physical cylinder on the drive minus 4 cylinders. It is used by the controller for spare cylinder allocation.

CE Cylinder
The CE cylinder is the last physical cylinder on the drive minus 3 cylinders. It is used by the controller for diagnostic purposes, such as for read, write, and format tests.

NOTE: The CE Cylinder is ONLY used for testing!

Secondary Defect Map
The Secondary Defect Map is located on the last physical cylinder on the drive minus 2 cylinders. It is for internal use by the controller.

Primary Defect Map
The Primary Defect Map is located on the last physical cylinder on the drive minus 1 cylinder. It is used by the controller to format the drive.

Factory-format Defect List
A factory format defect list may reside on the last physical cylinder. The last physical cylinder is reserved; the attachment does not read, write or format on this cylinder.