From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 15 07:03:48 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A878A16A4CE for ; Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:03:48 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail26.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail26.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.133.167]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D299043D31 for ; Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:03:47 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from PeterJeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (c211-30-75-229.belrs2.nsw.optusnet.com.au [211.30.75.229]) iBF73eR0006973 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:03:41 +1100 Received: from cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (localhost.alcatel.com.au [127.0.0.1])iBF73ZxP090317; Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:03:35 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from pjeremy@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au) Received: (from pjeremy@localhost)iBF73Z1d090316; Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:03:35 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from pjeremy) Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:03:35 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy To: J D Message-ID: <20041215070334.GA90262@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> References: <20041214231432.7371.qmail@web41509.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20041214231432.7371.qmail@web41509.mail.yahoo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2i cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Hi everyone :) X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:03:48 -0000 On Tue, 2004-Dec-14 15:14:32 -0800, J D wrote: >Hey, new here. I figured I would subscribe to this list as opposed to >the others because I have something of an odd problem which is directly >related to matters hardware. Alpha hardware is sufficiently uncommon that it's also discussed on -alpha. >Recently, that machine simply stopped working. You hit the power >switch, hear a brief click and spinning up of fans, and the power light >goes off about a second and a half afterward, sans any beeping, >blinking lights or presentation of error information on the machine's >built-in LCD. That sounds like a PSU problem. I agree that trying to buy a new one would be impractical (and uneconomic). If you know someone with some hardware skills, it may be repairable - the inside probably won't be that peculiar. >The machine now recognizes the presence of the three 2GB drives, but >sysinstall's fdisk calls the partitions on them "unused." When I do >"fdisk da0" from a root prompt, however, I get these bits of relevant >data: The problem is that Alpha disks don't have a PC-style partition table. >So. Be straight with me. Is the data on these drives completely >unrecoverable? Can I do some gymnastics to get it back? The data is still there and should be recoverable. Rather than using sysinstall, try installing the disks onto a functional FreeBSD system and try "disklabel daN". You should be able to mount those partitions. >issue. Is there some help for this, if true? Wikipedia says this >about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness which makes me think >that possibly my Alpha and PII are different-endian. The Alpha is theoretically bytesexual but, AFAIK, only little-endian Alpha systems exist. Your A1000 is definitely little-endian - which matches your P-II. The only issue you might bump into is that longs are 32-bits on i386 and 64-bits on Alpha, though all the on-disk structures are fixed sizes so this won't affect mounting the disk. >TIA for any help you can offer. Anyone who wants it, btw, can have any >of the hardware from my Alpha machine if they'd like it :) You might like to offer this in -alpha and give an indication of where you are (since an A1000 is not compact). -- Peter Jeremy