Merlin Mail Hard Drives

[GroundWire]

I'm trying to clone my Merlin Mail R3's hard drive, so I have a backup if [when] it fails.

I'm familiar with the way it's setup, with CP/M and all.. What I'm struggling with right now, is getting the right drive geometry so I can access the drive, then sticking a new drive in the machine, and having that also boot properly. (with the artificial geometry)

Any of you refurb guys out there know how to do this? I'm not even sure if I can buy hard drives that are pre-loaded anymore? I need to know how to be self-sufficient.

I'd be happy to take this up with someone in e-mail, since this is kinda/sorta still about Legends.

Thanks!

- Joel

 

[merlinman]

My experience has shown that they are of a rather proprietary nature, with non-standard partitions, something that "normal" copy programs can not figure out.

However, I must say, I have only tried a couple of hard drives. There is one more in my lab that I will look at when I have the time.

But I am afraid that there is MUCH more to this than meets the eye. (They are, after all, set up in CONCURRENT DOS, not regular Dos....)

 

[bigridge1]

I am in agreement w/MERLINMAN about it being proprietary
software...also it loads on a much older version of DOS
(I think its 5.0) It has been my experience with the Stand alones
(i.e.MERLIN MAIL R2,R3 etc.)that the serial number
found on the outside case is programmed into the hard drive
and when you replace (refurb or swap out, whatever)
the Back door code trick no longer works
(i.e.typing in the serial number to reset the admin password)
when someone changes it and then forgets/quits.
I still get calls from time to time for this. As for cloning the hard drive,
I bet it can be done.....I doubt if your local COMPUSA
or BESTBUY would even have a Hard drive you could hook up
to it (I think it originally had a 2G HARD DRIVE .....
but I could be pushing it here.....My advice ...
PRAY FOR IT TO DIE! and convince your boss to upgrade!
If that doesn't work....try ebay....you can still buy
refurbs(try TELECOM GEAR). Good Luck!

 

[GroundWire]

No, it's not a 2gb drive - The one I have at the moment is an 850mb, and I believe it's been "refurbed" because I've seen 340's in these before.

That's an issue I'm going to have to tackle, once I get a successful image.. is how do I get a 10gb drive to be properly accessed by a 386-40.. I don't really think it'll matter though, since I have to fake the geometry anyway.

There is only about 213mb worth of stuff in them.

I believe these actually run CP/M, which was what Bill Gates and some other guys ripped off to create DOS, as well as being an ancestor of Concurrent DOS (another one of Digital Research's projects).

The partition table lists two partitions..

hdX3 is a partition that is of the type "db" (That's hex don't forget), which is a CP/M partition type.

and hdX4 is something like a 12mb FAT12 partition..

My next experiment will be to get the Merlin Mail hard drive to boot on a DIFFERENT 386 motherboard, with the Brooktrout voice cards as well.

The motherboard that this MM shipped with doesn't appear to have a BIOS setup, so I can't see how the hard drive geometry is configured. I did however find something very interesting. If you connect to the MM via a console cable, and CTRL+C out of the Access Manager software, you can type "cmos" at the CP/M prompt, and it will show you some very interesting settings.

One of them lists my "hard drive type" as being 46. That may be what I need to know, it may not.. We'll see..

At the moment, this is looking like some of the best copy protection I've ever seen. Of course, that's because not a whole lot of people have decided to break it.

I'm hoping Drew will offer tidbits, even if it costs me some money.. This is going to drive me nuts until I know how this works.

- Joel

 

[killbox]

Merlinman,
I wouldn't backing up to the flash card in the mail store all your programming and a lot less grief? Or maybe just backing it up to a 2nd flash card that you could keep on the side?

KILLBOX

 

[GroundWire]

Because we're talking about a Merlin Mail R3.

In case it's been awhile since you've worked with one of these..

It's a cute little metal case, that has a 386-40 in it, 640k worth of RAM, an AT power supply, and between a 340mb and a 850mb hard drive. Between that and the Brooktrout voice cards, you've got yourself a very hard working external voicemail unit.

No floppy drives, no CD-Rom, no flash slots.. not even a keyboard port (that is accessible from the outside), or a video card.

- Joel

 

[killbox]

MERLIN MAIL! My bad. It's been a long week. Talk to my guy Dale at

http://www.comtalk.com

KILLBOX

 

[merlinman]

Actually, that comes back as a domain name for sale.....

 

[killbox]

Weird. Talk to Dale. 800-955-6082
Any sort of Vm for Definity or Magix, he'll usually have some kind of answer. Tell him Alex from Pathway in L.I., NY gave you his number.

KILLBOX