NASLite Network Attached Storage

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 11:10 am 
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Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:57 am
Posts: 19
Here are the facts:

1) NO NT based windows (i.e. NT4.00,Win2K, WinXP, Win2003) can
deal with the 1.722 kb floppies.
This is due to the Operating System Hardware Layer and CANNOT be
bypassed. (no more than 80 tracks on floppies)

2) The format used by NASLITE is a "TRUE" 1722 format, it is NOT the
Microsoft distribution Format of 1680K sometimes called 1.72 as it gives
1,720,320 bytes
Let us clear things up:
1.44 (Normal) Floppy 80 Trks 2 Hds 18 Secs 512 B/S =1,474,560 bytes
1.68 (MS DMF) Floppy 80 Trks 2 Hds 21 Secs 512 B/S =1,720,320 bytes
1.72 (NASLITE) Floppy 82 Trks 2 Hds 21 Secs 512 B/S =1,763,328 bytes

3) This last format can be made with DOS and ANY DOS-based windows,
(i.e. Win95, Win98, WinME) by using an utility, seen below in point 6)

4) All ports of Rawrite to NT systems are of NO use as seen in point 1)
above.

5) Dos version of Rawrite is of NO use alone as it needs a previously
formatted floppy, however it is possible to use it from DOS after having
properly formatted the floppy with a tool like fdformat by Christoph H.
Hochstaetter.

6) There is a DOS tool that can create the NASLITE disk in one single
pass, formatting and copying image:
DCOPY 2.8 FAST by Jorgen Bosman
http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html
SYNTAX to be used is:
DCOPY [path]\NASLxxxx.img A: /F:1722 /S /V
(remember that you have to unpack the compressed NASLite-XXX.img.gz
with an unpacking utility and change the name to a compatible 8.3 format
before, suitable names are as follows:
NASLite-SMB.img.gz -> NASLite-SMB.img -> NASLSMB.img
NASLite-SMBG.img.gz -> NASLite-SMBG.img -> NASLSMBG.img
NASLite-FTP.img.gz -> NASLite-FTP.img -> NASLFTP.img
NASLite-FTPG.img.gz -> NASLite-FTPG.img -> NASLFTPG.img
NASLite-NFS.img.gz -> NASLite-NFS.img -> NASLNFS.img
NASLite-NFSG.img.gz -> NASLite-NFSG.img -> NASLNFSG.img)
Jorgen Bosman also made an NT version of DCOPY, do not try to be
smart, it does not work with this format, see 1) above

7) Nowadays floppies are much worse than a few years ago, it might be
tricky to find a floppy that has no errors, and with the NASLITE image
you CANNOT have ANY defective sector. Strangely enough "bulk"
non-preformatted floppies are better for this purpose than "brand"
preformatted floppies.
However ALWAYS format the floppy to 1.44 by using
DCOPY A: /F:1440 /FO /V
BEFORE trying to write the NASLITE image as in 6)

I hope the above is useful.

jaclaz


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 2:24 pm 
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Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 2:51 pm
Posts: 6
Location: purmerend the netherlands
Jaclaz,

thx for the information. But pls maybe add also info which unpack program should be used. If this info is added to your inforamtion
the end user will find a totall complete info how to create 1722 flops.


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 5:16 pm 
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Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:25 am
Posts: 36
if you download the file under windows (internet explorer) the file is already unpacket and useable for writing (only problem being..not able to format under windows :) )


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2004 5:33 pm 
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Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:25 am
Posts: 36
if you download the file under windows (internet explorer) the file is already unpacket and useable for writing (only problem being..not able to format under windows :) )


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 3:23 am 
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Site Admin

Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:01 pm
Posts: 801
Location: ServerElements
We've just released the NASLite Floppy Disk Utility CD which will easily make all NASLite floppies for users who are only using Windows systems.



http://www.serverelements.com/naslite-fdu.php


-Ralph


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 5:42 pm 
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Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2004 5:27 am
Posts: 48
Location: Franfurt am Main, Germany
Hy,

hm, why is it so complicated to build the Disks under a Linux System? Is there no friend in the neighbourhood who could do it? Is there no Knoppix CD-based linux at hand to build one?
I have first had installed a RedHat Linux (see e.g. http://linuxiso.org for a Distri), downloades the Disk, made one and that it was. Later i slip the naslite Disk in the Floppy, initialized the HDD in the Computer (where the RedHat was installed, i know that this heard stupid, but for the floppy ... ;-) ). ready, go ;-))


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 8:55 pm 
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Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 8:51 pm
Posts: 5
Anybody had success making a disk with the DCOPY utility? I have tried unsuccessfully on three Win98 machines. Each time it reports a Write Error, then asks whether I want to Skip, or Slow, or Quit. Choosing sLow makes it write 19 tracks, then it bombs out permanently.

I've tried with a new image and several different floppy disks, all with the same results. Anybody got a workaround?


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 11:28 am 
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Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2004 11:15 am
Posts: 6
I used this nice utility under Win XP Pro SP1 with success:

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

Apart from the confusing created by the message on the download page -on gunzip'ping the gz files (the are not gzip'ped when downloaded in Windows, just rename the files to .img) - this method is probably the fastest of all.
If you receive an error during disk creation, it is most likely due to a bad diskette. Replace it and try again.

/gustav


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 8:42 pm 
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Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2004 8:51 pm
Posts: 5
Tried the utility that you suggested. It *appeared* to work, but NASLite failed to load the Linux RAMDisk properly. Went back to using DCOPY. Once I realized that I had to *format* the disk as 1.722 before copying the image, it worked perfectly. <Whack> (Sound of hand slapping forehead!!)


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:38 am 
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Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2004 10:57 am
Posts: 19
@romorio
Almost "ANY" decompressing utility can deal with gzipped file i.e.:
Winzip (Shareware)
Winrar(Shareware)
7zip(Freeware)
Commandline ones:
Gzip
(there are ports both for DOS and Windows
http://www.gzip.org/

@cactus
the images are gzipped, if you download them with windows AND some versions of Internet Explorer, maybe they were uncompressed in the download, but it does not apply as a general rule.

I haven't experimented with XP Pro, but I do not think Microsoft has modified the hardware layer, so it is "strange" that you could write to sectors 81 and 82 from within XP.
Same thing applies to the "rawwriting" without prior formatting as 1722 the floppy.
This is a REQUIREMENT under linux:
Quote:
fdformat /dev/fd0u1722

before:
Quote:
dd if=NASLite.img of=/dev/fd0u1722

so I don't see how rawrite, which is a replacement of dd could do this, unless it, like DCOPY discussed before, formats before writing to disk.

Could you post more detailed info on the steps you have taken?

@jacksonmacd
Happy it worked!
jaclaz


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