"Martin Whybrow" wrote in message
...

"Steve" wrote in message
...
Shawn D'Alimonte wrote:

Steve wrote:
OK, OK. I've bit the hook. I've got a 1650B right here. Paid all of
of
$50 US for mine. Please tell me how to read the disk on my Linux RH
7.3,
running a plain 2.4.27 Kernel, (as if it makes a difference) and I'll
be happy to send you the image. Also have a Fedora box sitting here,
too.
Respectfully, I don't think it can be done. Don't have the url
references, but I've read some discussion about this is the distant
past,
and the conclusion was a PC drive can not be used. Please prove that
info wrong; it would certainly be a useful tidbit for one/us to know.
Floppy drives are cheap, worth the risk, I guess.... ;^)

I am looking for a disk for a 1650A.

Have no clue if the 1650B diskette I have makes any difference.


Google found references to a program called LIFUTIL for accessing LIF
disks on a DOS PC. I also found links to downloads for the 1650 from
Agilent's FTP server but the files seem to have disappeared in a
reorganization. I emailed Tech Support and they said they aren't
there
since it is obsolete.

I have seen test equipment dealers selling the disks, but don't want
to
spend much since I have no cables or probes either (Got the 1650 cheap
and figured I would try to make some probes after I got the s/w. Yes,
I
know the probe has a terminator in it.).


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Martin & Shawn,
Grabbed LIFUTIL off the 'net. Ran it on a spare Pentium II machine
that boots DOS ver 5.0. The utility does not allow one to make a
perfect
disk image, but it can be used to make an apparently functional HP
diskette!
Oddly, the utility allows one to dump the contents of the HP diskette to
an ASCII hex dump file, yet doesn't allow use of said dump file to
create
a new diskette. Therefore, it's a bit of work to manually do each file
at a time, but it works. Comparing ASCII dumps of original and the
newly generated diskette, there are blocks of FF's verses zeroes,
(in apparently the directory or "FAT" areas of the diskette) but it
doesn't seem to matter.

After midnight here now -- I'm off to bed. Hopefully can get a
zip file together tomorrow & will email.

Thanks, Steve

Steve
I tried automounting the disk on my Linux box (Mandrake 9.1 with
customised
kernel) but it wouldn't recognise the disk; I don't know the format used
so
I couldn't try manually mounting it. Glad to see that LIFUTIL works, I'll
try to download it.
I tried the same disk on a 1650A today (FW rev 1.0a, my 1650B is FW rev
2.3b) and it booted correctly, but I'm still not sure if it's a version
incompatibility or a fault on the analyser.
Thanks for the advice, looking forward to receiving mail :-)
Martin.
Steve
I've downloaded lifutil; can you tell me what sector size the original disk
is formatted for (256 or 1024 bytes)?
Thanks,
Martin
--
martindot herewhybrowat herentlworlddot herecom