Need help with MOD Disk copying

Hello,

we are running Irix 6.5 on our octane/sgi computers - these computers come with an external Sony MOD drive attached via a scsi cable. We have backed info to 2.3 gig MOD disks over the years and woule like to duplicate the MOD's. I believe there are 3 ways to do this:

1. add a second drive to the SGI possibly using the instructions at Installation Guide SGI. System Administration. Adding a magneto-optical drive to the computer and make copies/clones of our current MOD disks. (I believe once we physically attach another MOD drive we will have to 'load' the drive(s) and enter some commands that copy the first MODs' disk and then transfer to the second MODs' disk. We would also want to verify the files made it to the new MOD disk a list of the files with details).
2. I also understand there are MOD disks duplicators that will do the job (minus the verification step?)
3. Copy all of the MOD's data to our harddrive, eject the original MOD, put in a new MOD and make a new copy to the MOD drive and verify.

We could use any/all help with the above and have limited IRIX skills -

Thanks in advance

Steve

All these three possibilities will work, but probably (and depending on the number of disks involved) the disk duplicator will be the one least costly, because it can work automatically.

You can verify a medium (any medium, including your MODs) by simply reading from it. Put the newly copied MOD in a drive, and use something similar to this script:

#! /bin/ksh

mount /dev/<whatever the devicename of the MOD is> /tmp/disktest

if [ $(tar -cvf - /tmp/disktest >/dev/null 2>&1 ; print - $?) -gt 0 ] ; then
     print - "ERROR: Disk has read errors"
else
     print - "Disk passed read test"
fi

umount /tmp/disktest
exit 0

May i ask then, why you post in the experts forum? It surely can't be because of the nature of your problem, which is entry-level at best, yes?

I hope this helps.

bakunin

---------- Post updated 04-19-10 at 11:49 AM ---------- Previous update was 04-18-10 at 06:53 PM ----------

After doing some searching i found no such thing as a media duplicator for MO-media, so perhaps such a thing isn't being produced.

You could build such a device (at least half-automated, that is) yourself by installing two MO-drives in one system. It doesn't even have to be a SGI-workstation, a simple Linux workstation would suffice, which would probably lower the price tremenduously.

Then start the following script (or some variant of it) as root. I have:

#! /bin/ksh

typeset chInDev="/dev/sdb1"         # these are assumptions, probably have to be changed
typeset chOutDev="/dev/sdc1"

typeset fInPath="/tmp/DiskIn"
typeset fOutPath="/tmp/DiskOut"

mkdir -p "$fInPath"
mkdir -p "$fOutPath"

while : ; do
     print - "-- Load both drives, then press ENTER --" ; read junk
     sleep 20            # give the drives time to spin up, maybe required, maybe not

     mount "$chInDev" "$fInPath"
     mount "$chOutDev" "$fOutPath"

     cd "$fInPath"
     tar -cf - * | (cd "$fOutPath" ; tar -xf - )
     if [ $? -gt 0 ] ; then
          print - "ERROR: could not copy disk!"
     else
          print - "Disk successfully duplicated."
     fi
     cd -

     umount "$fInPath"
     umount "$fOutPath"
done

exit 0

You can stop this script by pressing "CTRL-C", otherwise it will loop forever, asking for one disk after the other.

I hope this helps.

bakunin