getting large file from HDD over to floppy/s and Pi 1Mhz

[brianmartin_2001]

Need some help ...

I have a SCSI hard disk unit with a large file with ADFS Viewdata frames
on it , probably around 300 frames or so plus other data.

*INFO produces a size of 80113C (about 8.5Mb). A lot of this is
actually empty file space as I expanded the file for future frames.

I want to back this up to my Pi1Mhz system , obviously the route
being with floppy images via my Gotek.

I have had a go with Treecopy which should allow me to pause
to change disks but I get a Disc full message and an option to
Skip. (see photo)

I assume a file cant have only part of it saved on a floppy.
Or maybe I am messing up somewhere. Is the bad name error relevant?

Is there anyway to get this done safely. I tried Copyfiles too but was getting
other probs with that also.


I've now since discovered *BACKUP won't work if I try a backup to my Pi 1Mhz from
my Gotek..

a simple *BACKUP 4 0 just gives a "Bad Parms" error.

Now I am really confused.

I tried loading up ADT (shouldnt have needed to )
and it attempted to do it I think , certainly took long enough.
However there was nothing transferred to drive 0 on the Pi drive.

Help!

[KenLowe]

As replied via PM, I'm not immediately aware of an easy way to span a large file from the SCSI drive across multiple floppies.

What I would do in this instance to create a backup is use TreeCopy to copy the file over to my Econet file server from the HDD, but that's not really an option if you don't have Econet.

Another option might be to reconfigure Pi1MHz HDD to sit at a different base address, and use the special patched version of ADFS (XDFS) that BeebMaster created to talk to that HDD. See details here:

viewtopic.php?t=27259.

With this solution you can have both physical HDD and Pi1MHz connected to the 1MHz bus at the same time and I think you should be able to use TreeCopy to copy between ADFS and XDFS. However, this solution also needs a patched version of my Pi1MHz board:

viewtopic.php?p=404408#p404408

Maybe others will have a better solution.

[james]

The “Winchester Disc Filing System USERGUIDE” http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org ... stemUG.pdf mentions, on p98, the BACKUP utility:

BACKUP
Purpose
Enables data to be backed up from the Winchester to FM floppy discs (or vice versa).
BACKUP provides several facilities not provided by COPYF, including the ability to back up very large files, ie files too large to be stored on a single floppy disc.

This is a BASIC program, so not the *BACKUP already tried or the one supplied with ADFS floppies.

I don’t have a copy of the program and have never used it, but mention it as it appears to fit the bill and others might have a copy for you to give it a try.

Edit: there are also split and join utilities on MDFS at https://mdfs.net/Software/FileTools/ and I suppose you might be able to create a heap of split up files of, say, 600 Kb then copy each chunk onto a ADFS disc image on your Gotek, copy them all off at the other end and rejoin them on your Pi1Mhz system.

And see if you can find a checksum utility, so you know source and target files are the same!

Edit2: Zip (compress) your large file (is it MENUS0?) on your SCSI disc first (zip programs are on mdfs.met) Should make for far fewer floppies.

Alas not: Edit3: Found Pinapple Software's ADU (ADFS Utilities) whose "BACKUP claims "It will cope with Backups between different size discs, and can also download Winchesters onto floppy/3.5 inch discs and reload them back on again. It can cope with multiple source and/or destination discs, and will use Second Processor memory if possible.". There is a flyer document and the ROM is on MDFS under AUTILS110 . I've not used this ROM, but mention it as it appears to do what you need.

[KenLowe]

Good tips.

I'll need to see if I can track down my Viglen Winchester Utilities disk to see if the BACKUP utility is on there. I posted a copy of the User Guide some time ago - although it's not clear about all the utilities that were provided pre-installed on the HDD:

viewtopic.php?t=22699

IIRC, the Viglen utilities were basically a copy of the Acorn ones...

Edit: Right, I found a copy of the utilities on one of my HDDs. I've copied them over to a floppy .adf image, and attached to the above linked post.

I'm not sure the Backup utility does an individual file backup, though. It looks like it backs up the entire HDD:

Code: Select all

            ** BACKUP **

    BACKUP will copy sector for sector
all the information from one disc to
another. It is recommended that you
take backups frequently, either using
BACKUP or DIRCOPY. Floppy discs can be
damaged and a disc that is corrupted
could mean hours, days or even weeks of
wasted work if you do not have a backup
copy available. 
The DIRCOPY utility may be used to
copy whole directories from one disc
to another - this may be quicker than
backing up the whole disc.

  To use BACKUP, type  *BACKUP a b

where 'a' is the source drive and 'b'
the destination drive.  Either b, or
a & b may be omitted, in which case
the program will ask you to supply
the missing information.              

  If you state that you are only using
one drive you will be prompted when
it is necessary to change the discs
during the copying process.

   MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE THE
CORRECT DISC IN THE APPROPRIATE
DRIVE.

[BeebMaster]

If it's just for a single file, or a small number of files, one way to do it, without needing extra filing systems or hardware mods, would be to use a second processor large enough to fit the file. For this kind of thing I use the Native ARM in Pi Tube Direct.

With that running, you can just *LOAD the file in memory say at &100000, then park the hard drive, disconnect it from the 1MHz bus, plug in the destination drive, mount it and and *SAVE the block of memory where the file has been loaded.

There's a risk in plugging and unplugging devices whilst the Beeb is powered on, sometimes you get what appears as a power-on reset when doing this sort of thing, but as long as power to the PiTube hasn't been lost, the data should still be there to do the save.

[brianmartin_2001]

Ken , James and Ian thanks very much for these
suggestions. I ve had some success getting my BBS host system rebuilt on another directory on my hard drive.

I ll investigate these to try and get what now is a large,single directory copied over to the Pi 1Mhz.

Ken , I may still take you up on your offer to do this via Econet at the ABug Falkirk meet if you are attending. But I ll see how I do with suggestions you all made thanks ...

Cheers guys
Brian

[brianmartin_2001]

Ok in reverse order I will attempt each of these tonight. Starting with Ian's.
So if I *LOAD Menus0 100000 ? on my CoPro (Native ARM).

Just want to confirm though , the main file I have an issue with is the Menus0 file which is around 8-9Mb
To load a file this big into RAM on the ARM will likely be fine?

The entire host is around 15 Mb and about 20 files (guess), do you think this might be possible to do in one go ?
Or.
There are directories within directories in there though. Would I be best doing individually (safer) ?

There's a risk in plugging and unplugging devices whilst the Beeb is powered on, sometimes you get what appears as a power-on reset when doing this sort of thing

When you are mentioning risk , I hope you don't mean catastrophic in any sense?

Ken, if I fail with Ian's then DIRCOPY will be next to try as I said the whole thing now sits in one
directory with others beneath it... this might be the most reliable method for me
considering my abilities with this .. (update to come)


Thanks to you all again guys