getting data to an updated machine

[Brian K. White]

> Other methods we've used to transfer data from Xenix boxes is to
> plug in an Adaptec SCSI controller and an external tape drive or
> to plug the Xenix hard drives in an SCO OpenServer box which can
> mount the Xenix file systems directly.

Either of these is my first choice too, but I have access to lots of sco 
boxes and and tape drives and controllers and am very familiar with 
installing them and using them on sco.
If he had a media kit he could install a 60 day demo on almost any random 
box, but then he'd have to be more familiar with sco than he sounds.
And spare hard drives are easier to find than tape drives and tapes, not to 
mention faster, not to mention maybe a little easier to configure on linux 
simply by being a more common operation for most people, not to mention if 
you make it the same type of drive as the old one it does not involve 
installing new drivers for a controller card on sco, etc...

Lots of considerations like that went into my first suggestions.
It's really not that hard to hook up a drive and dump data to it, and you're 
done in minutes instead of days.
And it gets easier, If he does it that way, I don't mind spelling out the 
exact sequence of commands and physical actions to take after getting some 
details about the old server.

If there is some understandable problem like the old controller is an old 
style 50 pin scsi ribbon cable and he can't find a spare drive like that 
anywhere, that changes things and makes some of the other possibilities a 
little more practical. It all depends on the exact details of the old box. 
If the old box has an ide drive then hands down it's easiest to use a temp 
hard drive. If the old box has a tape drive that still works and he has 
tapes that still work and it's not some unsupported proprietary controller 
that linux has no driver for, then it's easiest to write some tapes and move 
the tape drive. And it's safer too since you can't write to 
/dev/xct<anything> or /dev/rStp<anything> and accidentally blow away your 
root drive whereas that is possible if you're not careful writing to a 2nd 
hard drive.
Or maybe he has access to a scsi or ide tape drive that wasn't in the old 
box originally but that we know can be installed on xenix without too much 
difficulty.
It may even turn out out that the old hard drive already has a dos partion 
on it that's big enough to hold at least the filepro if not the whole 
copmpressed filesystem. That would be _extremely_ easy.
Possibilities like that are among the details about the old box that make 
all the difference in deciding what to do.
If none of that pans out, then serial begins to look good.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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