possible head crash :-( [I'm making progress!]

[Gary Trujillo]

Well, it looks as if I'm well on my way to solving my own problem.
I haven't heard from anyone yet, but I suspect that messages are
even now winging their way toward me regarding my problems cleaning
up after a hard disk failure.

I recalled from my PDP-11 UNIX days being able to fork a shell on
a serial port from a single-user console shell, and succeeded on
my 3B1 with the command:

	/mnt/bin/ksh </dev/tty000 >/dev/tty000 2>&1&

That allowed me to talk to the machine via a cable between it and my
spare (a 7300).  [The only problem is that I can't seem to set the
"intr" function on the port, so I can't break out of a command. :-(]

I discovered an "-s -" option in kermit that allows it to send from
standard input, rather than a file, so I can use:

	tar cf - * | compress | kermit -s -

Unfortunately, this version of kermit only supports speeds up to
9600 baud, whereas the ports will go up to 19.2KB.  Sigh.

Oh well, at least I'm able to recover stuff.

BTW, I came across a message from John B. Milton that he posted
back in April (which I'd cleverly written on my handmade floppy
file system disk) where he describes how to fix up /etc/inittab
to free up the floppy drive.  However, I think it relies on being
able to boot from the hard disk (right, jbm?):

| From: jbm at uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton)
| Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,unix-pc.general
| Subject: Re: DISK CRASH! (quick boot info)
| Message-ID: <513 at uncle.UUCP>
| Date: 20 Apr 89 06:12:05 GMT
| References: <8904181249.AA22934 at zorch.UU.NET>
| Organization: U.N.C.L.E.
| 
| In article <8904181249.AA22934 at zorch.UU.NET> scott at zorch.UU.NET
|		(Scott Hazen Mueller) writes: (for David Melman)
| ...
| >It will not boot off the hard disk, but will boot off the floppy.
| >The injured disk can be mounted, and some files can be read.
| >
| >How can the system allow the removal of the boot floppy (and stay up)
| >so the readable files off the hard disk can be backed up to the floppy
| >drive?
| 
| ...
| When booted from the floppy, cd to /mnt/etc and add these lines:
| is:1:initdefault:
| cn:1:respawn:/bin/sh >/dev/console </dev/console 2>&1
| and add a ":" to the beginning of these two lines:
| is:2:initdefault:
| rc::bootwait:/etc/rc > /dev/null 2>&1
| 
| Yes, you will have to use vi in open mode!
| 
| Save out and try to reboot to the hard disk. You should get a # prompt about
| 5 seconds after the "... Main board is ..." stuff. No window driver, no disk
| check. This should free up the floppy drive so you can get stuff off.
| 
| John

Anyway, it appears things are gradually coming under control, even if
my methods seem a bit primitive (I'm still open to better suggestions,
though).

I'd still like ideas on a good replacement drive, if I'm unable to
reformat the Miniscribe.  Thanks!

	Gary