Now successfully booting Octane from external SCSI2SD.

KayBee

Active member
Feb 24, 2020
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I inventoried my SCSI disks today, with the thought that I am enjoying the octane, I had better clone the root disk so I have a disk fail I can get up and running faster. Looking at my disks, I have 5 drives total, and none are the same size, ranging wildly from 73GB to 2GB. So I sipped my espresso this morning and looked on eBay and almost pulled the trigger on another 73GB drive. Instead I revisited my goal of getting the SCSI2SD to boot.

last week I probably missed something but I tried it internally in all slots, with many settings variations and never once did I get it recognized by the system. I will be happy when someone finds what I missed since having it internally would be more tidy.

Running the SCSI2SD on the Octane is far snappier than my O2 300MHz R5200 which I was using for learning C, so speed is obviously not my main priority, but compared to O2, the Octane feels completely different, I will develop on the Octane from now on. I am using a 32GB "SanDisk Extreme" microSD in an SD adapter (because that's what I had on hand). I don't yet know how robust microSD vs. regular SD are, but once I had all my apps and C source on the SD, it is very easy to clone.

I started by putting an old 9GB SCSI in the lower slot and installing IRIX 6.5.30 from scratch, setting it up the way I like it and copying all my C source to it from the Mac. Then I shutdown and installed the SCSI2SD to the Octane external SCSI via an old O2 CDROM cable and a 68-to-50 pin adapter. Then following Ian's "Disk and File System Administration" guide (thanks for the link Stormy) I cloned the 9GB root disk to the SDcard.

Then I pulled the root disk out and started the machine. At the hinv I typed: boot -f dksc(1,1,8)sash64 dksc(1,1,0)unix root=dks1d1s0 and booted the machine.

Like music and movies we all have different SGI tastes. For me learning graphics, low-end SGI graphics are a good fit and SD disk speeds are enough.

Cheers,

KB
 

stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
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Congrats! That is really awesome, by the way which version of the SCSI2SD are you using? Glad the guide helped, it is pure gold in my opinion and I hope Ian keeps it on the internet for many years to come. I use it to copy my main installation every time I change my main boot disk. In regards to the internal detection I wonder if it is due to the external port having relaxed settings as not every external device is going to be an ultra wide 320 SCSI. I am sure there are others who have got it working before, I've seen benchmarks around the forum's somewhere, perhaps they can share their scsi2sd settings. I assume you've played around with the scsi2sd config tool etc? Could also be worth emailing the author of scsi2sd as I find him to be very responsive and helpful.
 

KayBee

Active member
Feb 24, 2020
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I used the V6 2020 d version. I bought it recently, and when I did I could swear the site at inertial Computing indicated there were many in stock, I just checked and it is sold out? What you say about the external makes sense and I hadn't thought of that. From what I remember on the forums, cool people like Callahan did benchmarks via the external SCSI on the octane. I did indeed use the SCSI2SD utility to tweak settings, man I tried (I think) everything to get the SCSI2SD to work internally but no luck. Attached are the settings that worked for me on the external. Please note that termination is off because I am using an old O2 CD-ROM cable that has an active terminator on it. You're right about the author to (you and I seem to think alike) he is patient and helpful. I did contact him and we didn't come to a conclusion. I still think it must be possible. I would prefer it internally for tidiness and to free up the external connector.
 

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stormy

Active member
Jun 23, 2019
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I just had an idea... If you don't (or do) have a PCI cage in your octane, you could open up that area by removing the cover and it might be large enough to store the scsi2sd in. Just make sure it's wrapped in something non conductive and it might be quite a neat solution. I bet someone with a 3d printer could redesign the cover with a hole to let the SCSI cable through. It's quite a large area inside, empty space. I do have a PCI cage and I bet I could fit a scsi2sd inside there too.
 

KayBee

Active member
Feb 24, 2020
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Hi Stormy, that's a neat idea. I have a 3d printer and I could make a mount as well such that the SD card faces outward. Interesting idea, thank you.
 

RetroBytes

New member
Apr 17, 2021
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I really need to get on and do this, I've bought the scsi2sd for my Octane I've just not got round to doing it yet. I bought it when the scsi disk in my SS10 started to go, and I bought one for it so I could copy everything off. So the sun is now using it, just the Octane todo now.
 

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