SUMMARY: Problems reading CDROMs

From: Mike Jewison (mjewison@nereid.sal.ists.ca)
Date: Mon Apr 19 1993 - 19:00:03 CDT


Some time ago, I said:

> Greetings, Sun Managers.
>
> Last month I upgraded our Sparc 1 from SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 4.1.3. This Sparc
> has a Toshiba CD-ROM connected to it which we have been using for some time
> to retrieve images from disks provided by NASA. (The images are from the
> Galileo spacecraft.)
>
> Since the upgrade we are unable to read the images from the CDROMS, although
> we can see the header labels, which are stored as short, separate ASCII files.
> When we attempt an "ls" of a directory on the CDROM, the following error
> messages scroll up on the console:
>
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
> hsfs: filetype (0x8) not supported
>

And on, and on, and on.....

Due to some extreme net wierdness, my original posting appeared about a week
after I had posted a solution, meaning that many people never saw the summary
and replied to my delayed original message.

Anyway, the problem is that Sun, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to
support XARs and, as a result, the hsfs driver complains loud and long about
any CDROM which makes use of them.

The solution for me was to patch the file /usr/kvm/sys/sun4c/OBJ/hsfs_node.o
as follows:

----- Begin Included Message -----
 
Subject: NASA CD's and SunOS 4.1.2
 
As you found out, Sun cannot read the guide star
catalog cdrom from NASA. This is because all of the data
files are of type RECORD, which Sun chose not to support because
there is no UNIX interface to access the RECORD structure file.
 
Attached is a kernel patch that you can make your Sun
machine to read the guide star cdrom. As a precaution, please
save your old kernel before applying this patch.
 
for SunOS 4.1.2 & 4.1.3
 
acuraintegra# adb -w vmunix
>>>> hs_parsedir+c0?X
_hs_parsedir+0xc0: ba0de0ee
>>>> hs_parsedir+c0?Wba0de0e6
_hs_parsedir+0xc0: 0xba0de0ee = 0xba0de0e6
>>>> hs_parsedir+1a4?X
_hs_parsedir+0x1a4: ba0de0ee
>>>> hs_parsedir+1a4?Wba0de0e6
_hs_parsedir+0x1a4: 0xba0de0ee = 0xba0de0e6
>>>> $q
 
Note: >>>> is added to illustrate what you should type.
You need to reboot.
 
You can also edit the file in OBJ/hsfs_node.o.
 
 
Feel free to pass along this patch to those who need this fix.
 
----- End Included Message -----

Even after implementing this patch, I discovered that many of the files on the
disk were scrambled when I tried to read them. I finally traced that error
down to a patch purchased from Young Minds, who had originally sold us our
Toshiba CDROM. The Toshiba CDROM uses a 2k buffer, while Sun decided to go
for a 512 byte buffer - this results in an inability to read CDROMs on a
Toshiba CDROM drive/Sparc combination. The patch supplied by YM (which
replaces the sr.o file) causes problems when accessing CDROMs which have
implemented XARs. I then removed the YM patch and replaced it with one I
received from this list last month and, once again, all is well with the world.

My thanks to those who replied:

Peter G.Ford
John Benjamins
David T. Hightower
Terry Forrester
Bryan Butler
Dana Macelis-Rober
Andy Feldt
Steve Hanson
Michael Harris
 

-- 
- Mike Jewison, Systems Manager
  Space Astrophysics Laboratory
  Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science
  4850 Keele St., 2nd Floor
  North York, Ontario
  CANADA   M3J 3K1

Internet: mjewison@nereid.sal.ists.ca Phone: (416) 665-5451 FAX: (416) 665-5497



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