Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!unify!mem
From: mem@unify.UUCP (Mark Mason)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Reading a Hard Disk (The Hard Way)
Message-ID: <1204@unify.UUCP>
Date: 3 Nov 89 18:35:27 GMT
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 30

Hello,
I need some help with reading/writing sectors on a non-MSDOS
hard disk (no MSDOS partition table - I can't afford to run
fdisk on it).

I have a hard disk for a Tektronix workstation that needs a little
surgery. I need to be able to edit a couple of blocks so that
the workstation will be able to boot unix. Since this disk
was formatted with a WD controller (2005), I *think* that
I can read it on an IBM.

The drive is a Micropolis 1302 (20 Meg).

The fun part is that I cannot afford to overwrite the partition
tables using fdisk! I have looked through what manuals are available
to me, and I have not yet found a way to read a sector off a
non-MS-DOS hard disk. I know that it is possible (or format would
not work), but I don't know how.

I am willing to put a fair amount of work into writing whatever
necessary to accoumplish this, I just need some pointers on how
to do the reads and writes.

Thanks,
mem
-- 
mem@unify
tektronix!sequent!unify!mem <- works best
csusac!unify!mem
All opinions are my own, my employer hired me for facts.