ODS2 Disks under Windows XP

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello Hoff,
OpenVMS becomes death in our institute. But there are a lot of sensordata and sourcecode (hundreds of GB), which some one will use under Windows. So I did think, that the fastest way, will be a local connected SCSI disk. In case of this, I did try to use ODS2 reader under Windows.
Best regards Rudolf
P.S. Many thanks for the links

[x2084]

There are ODS2/5 file systems available for Linux, Google should be able to find them. I don't know if you can serve the files with Samba, but it may be worth a try.

[Ian Miller.]

The simplest thing would be to run a VMS system and serve the data via NFS or SAMBA or something. Everything else is going to add unsupported complications.

I don't suppose the people who decided to move from VMS properly considered archive data access.

[Hoff]

I'd suggest a project to export the data start on OpenVMS itself, and would combine this with OpenVMS under emulation for data and files that you've missed.

You could conceivably build a portable data export disk image, which includes OpenVMS VAX and the emulator and whatever else is needed.

Working across platforms is far easier if you start on the source platform and export from there. As you're finding out here, having to reverse-engineer low-level volume structures and record formats -- even structures that are mostly-documented, such as ODS-2 -- is a hassle and an effort.

Getting all of the data over to ISO-9660:1988 disks, or better, or potentially over to files stored on ANSI DLT or Ultrium tape would seem reasonable, too.

Google and its site:mvb.saic.com and some other appropriate search keywords will get you to various of the ODS-related packages on the Freeware and other distributions. If you want to pursue an approach based on off-platform reverse-engineering.

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello,
the reason for my question is, that we have a network without any OpenVMS host. Also our OpenVMS hosts will become death and in the near future there ist no way to read the ODS2 data nativly. Unix is also not a feature. It is here as death as OpenVMS. The onliest OS which live ist Windows. But I have found an other alternative way: the Tape Utulity (not freeware). With this utility I can read OpenVMS backup tapes under Windows. So I have to made an OpenVMS backup and all is OK.
Best regards Rudolf
P.S. I think we can close this thread

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello,
as you can see my previous message, I have found a solution.

[Alan Comstock]

I guess this is a moot point now... BUT... I'm sure there will be someone searching for a way to access ODS2 files on Window XP. I was able to d/l Hunter's W32 EXEs from http://mvb.saic.com/freeware/freewarev80/ods2/
Get a copy of the required dll from http://www.dlldll.com/downdll/7053.html
Extract the WNASPI32.DLL from the downloaded .ZIP to the same directory as ODS2_W32.exe. Double click ODS2_W32.exe or start from a DOS window and mount, dism, set def, copy(i did a text file), type and sear files on the disk.
Maybe someone, someday, will need this info.

Later,
Al