ODS2 Disks under Windows XP

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello,
I would like to mount ODS2 disks under Windows XP. I have the tool ODS2_WIN32. But I can't mount the disks because Windows does not accept the disk. What can I do? Does ODS2_WIN32 understand the after 7.2-1 structure (clustersize=4 by 300GB disks)?
Thanks in advance Rudolf Wingert

[Hoff]

What can you do? That's open-ended. :-)

The possibilities are endless, and limited only by imagination, budget and available time.

But seriously, there are two or three of these file system tools around, and whichever one you're using appears to have a bug or three.

There have been some changes to ODS-2 over the years, and more than a few open-source tools have had errors.

My guess is that you've just hit a bug -- possibly a longword pointer or such -- in the existing tool.

I reworked vmsbackup tool a while back, due both to bugs and due to ODS-5. And longword pointers featured.

Here's (another?) ODS-2 reader to try:

http://mvb.saic.com/freeware/freewarev80/ods2/

The ODS-2 specs are available on-line for ODS-2. Back around Freeware V4 or V5, IIRC. (And there's no consistency in what's under the ODS2 directory; it's been re-used for different stuff.) The only significant changes in recent times have been Dynamic Volume Expansion (and a reader tool probably won't notice that), and the removal of the primary home block as a requirement. There have been some related changes, such as the addition of the GPT, but that's not latent in V7.2-1.

ODS-5 on-disk is nearly identical to ODS-2, having largely involved adding FI5DEF structures (where needed) in addition to the FI2DEF structures for the shorter filenames.

Run some debug. See what's going on.

Or use CIFS or NFS or such, and serve the files over to the Windows box.

Or swap to another reader tool, and try that.

And once the volume structure is working, you're also certainly aware that indexed files and even various of the sequential files either aren't readable, or there's got to be conversion code built into the file system. Windows doesn't know from a VFC file.

MacFUSE or other package for Mac OS X or the Linux FUSE stuff could be a way to integrate this on a more current platform; stuffing a new file system into Windows is (based on the folks that I know that have tried it) way more of an effect than an approach built on FUSE or such.

If you port or fix it, post up the fix, too.

And if this is a commercial arequirement, there are folks around that can probably help.

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello Hoff,
Windows does not accept the disk. This is not a problem of the tool. Windows would like to initialize and convert the ODS-2 disk. So the question ist, what can I do to get a native disk character (e.g. E:\) for this disk, so that I can mount it with the ODS-2 tool.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

May be ask the author ? paulnank@au1.ibm.com (ibm !!!).

I wonder if it wasn't a NT tool (no support for xp).

Wim

[Hoff]

Other than the volume structure itself, I'm not at all certain the folks here in ITRC are the best audience. You're centrally looking to get help with a Microsoft Windows tool, and how to get a Microsoft tool to access a foreign file structure.

Which of the half-dozen or so ODS readers for Windows are you working with? Here's one off of Freeware V8.0... "ODS2_WIN32" doesn't tell me which one you're using, not without further digging on my part. (And given I'm seldom running Windows for anything...)

--
"ODS2, MISCELLANEOUS, Portable ODS-2 file structure reader

ODS2 V1.3 -- Read VMS ODS-2 disks on VMS, Windows, and UNIX
Written by Paul Nankervis, and modified by Hunter Goatley

This distribution with .EXEs by Hunter Goatley "

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello Wyngaert,
the email address of Paul is no longer valid!
Regards Rudolf

[Rudolf Wingert]

Hello Hoff,
I use: ODS2 V1.3 -- Read VMS ODS-2 disks on VMS, Windows, and UNIX
Written by Paul Nankervis, and modified by Hunter Goatley
The email address of Paul is not valid and Hunter does not have any experience with ODS2 disks under Windows.
Regards Rudolf

[Hoff]

Are you looking to get data into a Windows box for use with SIMH or other such emulation? If so, just image the whole volume -- data and all-- over, and connect and mount the disk that way.

You're barking up a very thin tree of experience and knowledge here, asking Windows operating system questions in the OpenVMS ITRC area. ODS-2 is basically immaterial here; OpenVMS and its file system are effectively bystanders.

Here's some info on using ext2 with Windows, and this might serve as a launching point for your quest to get Windows not to touch with the volume when you connect it:

http://ashedel.chat.ru/ext2fsnt/
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/ifskit/default.mspx

The last time I tried this (well prior to Freeware V8), Windows need only be told not to convert the volume when it started to try to get helpful. That may well have changed; I'm largely off of Windows and other related resource drains, and have been for a while now.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

I mailed him a link to this subject based upon an address I found on the net. It didn't bounce.

Wim

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Even that address finally bounced. Sorry.

Wim

[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