Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!mucs!els!dente
From: dente@els.uucp (Colin Dente)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Give me back my floppy files, please.
Message-ID: <1255@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
Date: 3 May 90 16:47:54 GMT
References: <900503.01112832.003105@CMR.CP6>
Sender: news@cs.man.ac.uk
Reply-To: dente@els.ee.man.ac.uk (Colin Dente)
Organization: University of Manchester, UK
Lines: 63

In article <900503.01112832.003105@CMR.CP6> GELINASJ@CMR001.BITNET writes:
>
[That he has lost some files on a floppy]

>Note that i deleted the "lost$found" file since i could
>not see what it was used for.

Not entirely a wise move...;-(

> ---------------------------------------------START OF LOG
>% mtvol f floppy
>Volume needs salvaging.  OK to mount? y
                                      ^^^
Here it is - numero uno big mistake.  NEVER mount something that needs
salvaging.  I dunno where it says it in the SR10 docs, but at SR9, on 
page 9-1 of 'DOMAIN System Utilities' - formerly Appendix 9 of the Domain
System Command Reference Manual:
	...Although you can proceed after AEGIS's "Disk needs salvaging"
	message, we strongly encourage you to take the time to salvage
	the logical volume.
	...If you mount the volume without running SALVOL, AEGIS
	incorrectly assumes that the block allocation information is
	correct.  Extensive damage may occur to files that would otherwise
	be intact.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Remember - when you mount a floppy on an Apollo it is part of a *real*
file system - not a mickey mouse one like MSDOS (yuk! spit! blergh!) so
you should treat it with a bit of respect - like remembering to dismount
it before you take it out of the drive...

Anyway - this is all rather shutting the stable door after the horse has
bolted - so lets get to them real problem...

>[SALVOL output]
>Summary:
>1188 free blocks, previous free count: 1188, total blocks: 1220

The fact that Salvol still thinks that the stuff is there means that maybe 
all is not lost.  I'd try sticking the disk in the drive, and doing something
like:
	dd if=/dev/rfl0a of=foobar

I know that this is capable of reading a good disk - but I've never tried it
on one that is, so to speak, fubar.  If it works, you'll get a file full of
rubbish, with your text hiding somewhere in it - an hour with emacs might
see things recovered.

Alternatively, knowing the i-numbers for the files might enable you to do
sexy things with rwvol, or fixvol, but it's beyond me to advise you on that - 
I only resorted to fixvol once in a moment of extreme despair with a dodgy
winchester - it worked, but I didn't have a clue what I was doing ;-)

>Salvage complete (ly useless...)
A little unfair, perhaps - I've never said this before, but you really
would have done well to have RTFMed first (I don't mean this nastily - 
just read it in a stern, fatherly voice, with just a hint of a frown ;-))


Colin
 Colin Dente                      | JANET: dente@uk.ac.man.ee.els
 Dept. of Electrical Engineering  | ARPA:  dente@els.ee.man.ac.uk 
 University of Manchester         | UUCP:  ...!mcvax!ukc!man.ee.els!dente 
 England                          | These might work now, but then again...